The U.S. Supreme Court has declined to review lower court rulings striking down New Hampshire’s ban on “ballot selfies.” The American Civil Liberties Union of New Hampshire challenged the state’s ban on “ballot selfies,” a prohibition of a voter taking a photo of their marked ballots and posting on social media to show how they voted, in 2014. Lower courts sided with the ACLU and three voters in the Granite State on the grounds of free speech. The ACLU represented former Rep. Leon H. Rideout, Andrew Langlois, and Brandon D. Ross, in the suit against Secretary of State William Gardner. Rideout said Monday the state was overreacting to new technology and social media. “I’m actually kind of surprised it went this far,” he said.
ACLU-NH legal director Gilles Bissonnette said the Supreme Court’s decision Monday was a victory for the First Amendment.
“The First Circuit correctly recognized that political speech is essential to a functioning democracy,” Bissonnette said. “The First Amendment does not allow the State to, as it was doing here, broadly ban innocent political speech with the hope that such a sweeping ban will address underlying criminal conduct.”
The state’s law was passed in 2014. After the First Circuit ruling in the fall of 2016, state lawmakers filed a bill to remove the “ballot selfie” ban from the statutes, but the bill was kept in committee.
Full Article: High court declines to review ruling striking down NH’s ban on ‘ballot selfies’ | New Hampshire.