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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: 1) by tftp on Tuesday August 25 2015, @12:47AM
In such a configuration all you need is a small mirror that you put onto the ballot. Then you take the picture of the ballot; the booth's walls would be sufficient for that. The mirror will insert your face into the photo. If the voter needs to prove the vote right after exiting the polling place, he has no time to use GIMP or Photoshop on the picture.
IMO, if the voter is so stupid as to sell his vote, he deserves all that follows. Unfortunately, voters are already selling their votes for the privileges and monies that the candidates are promising them from TV screens. Fight against proof of voting is a technological solution of a social problem - and as such it is doomed to fail. Widespread vote buying is not occurring because it is not practical. It's much easier to speak on TV and promise to pay every citizen some money. I don't recall if Arnold talked about that in advance, but that's what he did when he reverted Gray Davis' decision on some new DMV taxes. Not only that was legal - it was taxpayers' money.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday August 25 2015, @04:20AM
Widespread vote buying is not occurring because it is not practical.
Think about what you just wrote. Why is vote buying not practical? A key reason is because you can't determine who the voter voted for. I'm not that big a fan of anonymous voting (because I don't buy that the "paper trail" is that useful in preventing vote fraud), but a key point of it is that vote buying is impractical precisely because of the anonymity.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 25 2015, @04:52AM
That is one reason, but the other reason, implicit in GP's comparison to campaign promises, still holds. Vote buying is mostly impractical because it costs your own campaign money up front, regardless of the outcome; OTOH, campaign promises cost nothing if you lose, cost public money if you win and choose to follow through, and still cost nothing if you win and "fail" to secure the promised benefits for your constituents, e.g. because the other party's legislators conveniently blocked it. Of course you can just plain ol' renege, but the tried-my-best,-was-foiled routine is less damaging to your chances of re-election.
(Coercing votes e.g. under threat of firing is far more realistic threat, and a better argument for the secret ballot.)