Voting is democracy’s most fundamental right and responsibility and recent federal court rulings say you have a constitutional right to post photographs of yourself doing it. More than a dozen states have laws on the books that bar voters from photographing their ballots or even showing their ballot to another person. In the era of camera-equipped smartphones and social media, states have interpreted those laws to prohibit ballot selfies. Some states have gone a step farther and actually passed laws barring voters from posting photos of themselves at their polling stations. But in just the past four weeks, a federal appellate court in Boston and a federal trial judge in East Lansing have found laws prohibiting ballot selfies to violate the First Amendment’s protection of free speech.
Pop star Justin Timberlake turned ballot selfies into a sensation on Tuesday, when he posted a photo of himself casting an early ballot at a Memphis polling station on Instagram. Tennessee law bars voters from taking photographs inside polling stations, and the local district attorney’s office initially said it was reviewing the legality of Timberlake’s post before later clarifying that no probe was under way.
That was probably a smart decision by the county prosecutor considering the trouncing ballot-selfie bans have received in federal court.
Last month, the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals struck down a 2014 New Hampshire law that was enacted specifically to bar voters from photographing themselves in election booths. The case was brought by the American Civil Liberties Union on behalf of three New Hampshire voters who defied the law and posted ballot selfies.
Full Article: In ballot selfie battle, free speech beats fear of voter fraud.