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posted by takyon on Monday August 24 2015, @11:15PM   Printer-friendly
from the ballot-selfie-stick-ban dept.

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?


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  • (Score: 2) by mhajicek on Tuesday August 25 2015, @01:51AM

    by mhajicek (51) on Tuesday August 25 2015, @01:51AM (#227341)

    Being required to prove intelligence and/or knowledge in order to vote is a nice idea, but it's far too easy to pervert any such test to exclude certain groups if people. There's also the fact that even those in office wouldn't be able to agree on most of the answers.

    --
    The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
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  • (Score: 1) by tftp on Tuesday August 25 2015, @02:29AM

    by tftp (806) on Tuesday August 25 2015, @02:29AM (#227357) Homepage

    Being required to prove intelligence and/or knowledge in order to vote is a nice idea, but it's far too easy to pervert any such test to exclude certain groups if people.

    You can say the same about any law - does that mean that we ought to have no laws because they can be perverted? A short and simple law would be nearly impossible to misuse; if that misuse does occur then there is no point in democratic rituals - the society is no longer democratic anyway.

    I received today a census request - had to fill some forms online. There was nothing to fill on paper and mail in. Does that punish people who have no Internet access and no means whatsoever to get one, even in a library?

    There's also the fact that even those in office wouldn't be able to agree on most of the answers.

    There would be no need to vote if they could agree. I want competent people to voice their opinion. We do not decide on mass of neutrino by voting - why is that, in your opinion? Why do we delegate this problem to specially educated people? If that makes sense in physics, why does the same not make sense in social sciences?