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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: 1) by tftp on Tuesday August 25 2015, @06:48AM

    by tftp (806) on Tuesday August 25 2015, @06:48AM (#227435) Homepage

    Because, historically, in the States, tests such as you describe have only ever been used in practice to prevent Blacks from voting.

    Why don't you allow a possibility that, after SEVERAL GENERATIONS, such tests won't be used in practice for suppression of votes? Don't you see that every campaign is asking people to get out and vote? Don't you see that the white population of the USA is largely, predominantly not racist?

    Why would it be even beneficial to anyone to suppress black vote nowadays? Can you answer that question? What party, out of the one party that is out there, would benefit from such a thing? Cui bono? You are accusing me of knowing little; then please educate me and many other SN readers who were not born and raised in the USA - why would anyone want to suppress black vote?

    It looks like you are clinging to the old model, and that model is all that you can ever imagine existing. However the USA had voting qualifications initially; then they were changed; then they were removed. Do you like what you see? If yes, then please disregard my opinion, and opinions of others, since everything is just peachy. If no, then perhaps we can civilly discuss what can be done to fix the problem.

  • (Score: 3, Informative) by Thexalon on Tuesday August 25 2015, @12:31PM

    by Thexalon (636) on Tuesday August 25 2015, @12:31PM (#227546)

    Why don't you allow a possibility that, after SEVERAL GENERATIONS, such tests won't be used in practice for suppression of votes?

    A couple of years ago, the US Supreme Court ruled that voting rules changes in states with a history of preventing black people from voting no longer needed to get federal approval as they had previously under the Voting Rights Act of 1964. The very next day, those state governments were busy passing laws that were known to have the effect of preventing black people from voting.

    Of course, it could be that instead of trying to disenfranchise black people, they were trying to disenfranchise Democrats (black people are by far the most Democrat-heavy demographic). But it sure looks suspicious.

    --
    The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 25 2015, @06:23PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 25 2015, @06:23PM (#227719)

      Of course, it could be that instead of trying to disenfranchise black people, they were trying to disenfranchise Democrats (black people are by far the most Democrat-heavy demographic).

      Racism by proxy. Once upon a time racists didn't bother to disguise their racism, now they have to resort to one level of indirection. That is progress because the more levels of indirection we can force them to use, the more diffused their results. We will never eliminated racism, the best we can hope for is that it is spread around equally.