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A federal judge recently ruled that banning photos of ballots was unconstitutional:
The ruling clears the way for New Hampshire voters to post their ballot selfies during the first-in-the-nation presidential primaries early next year.
New Hampshire's ban went into effect September 2014 and made it illegal for anyone to post a photo of a marked ballot and share it on social media. The violation was punishable by a fine of up to $1,000.
[...] Mashable's Juana Summers adds that the judge found "there was no evidence that vote-buying or voter coercion were current problems in New Hampshire."
This seems like an interesting legal question, with good arguments on both sides:
- For the ban: If a photograph of a marked ballot is taken from the voting booth, then the voter can verify their vote with an interested third party, including those that would seek to purchase or coerce their vote.
- Against the ban: Such a photograph is protected free speech, and thus cannot be legally banned.
What do Soylentils think about this?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 25 2015, @12:42AM
Not exactly convenient, at least in Maricopa County. For reasons that should be obvious, you're only given one ballot. If you make a mistrake, you can exchange that one for a new one, The old is clearly marked in the presence of the voter as, "SPOILED,"
Vote coercion is going to be rare enough that exchanging a ballot as you described is convenient enough.
IF we start seeing selfie-based coercion happening, we can deal with it. The GOP has done a fantastic job of dealing with impersonation and photo-id with only the flimsiest of evidence that it's a problem. I'm sure they would be get right on it!