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, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 25 2015, @08:46AM
Sorry, too dangerous. It is a fact of life that education is correlated with wealth. So ultimately the wealthy people will do the elections. They will not be the only voters, but the majority. And that in turn will even more than today promote politics that's targeted at pleasing those with money, because now they not only pay the campaigns, they also decide the election. It doesn't take a lot of imagination to see that this will not end well for the poor.