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Lawsuit Seeks To Block New York Ban On 'Ballot Selfies' (msnbc.com)
You have have the right to vote, but should you have the right to take a selfie at a ballot? According to ABC News, a federal lawsuit is challenging a New York state law that makes it a misdemeanor to show a marked election ballot to others: The lawsuit filed late Wednesday in Manhattan federal court seeks to have the law banning so-called "ballot selfies" declared unconstitutional. The lawsuit says publishing a voted ballot on social media can be a powerful form of political expression. It says that someone claiming they voted without photographic proof reduces the credibility of the individual. Attorney Leo Glickman, who filed the suit on behalf of three voters, says the lawsuit is consistent with claims made in Michigan, Indiana and New Hampshire, where similar laws have been struck down. In a separate report, Mother Jones' Kevin Drum explained the reasoning behind why a law against "ballot selfies" would exist in the first place: Just for the record, then, there is a reason for selfie bans in voting booths: it prevents vote buying. After all, the only way it makes sense to pay people for their votes is if you have proof that they voted the way you told them to. Back in the day that was no problem, but ever since secret ballots became the norm vote buying has died out. Selfies change all that. If I give you ten bucks to vote for my favorite candidate for mayor, I can withhold payment until you show me a selfie proving that you voted for my guy.
In most of Europe it's a criminal offense. As it should be, since it undermines the integrity of the election.
Or the ability to mark a ballot, take a selfie, mark the ballot again to spoil it, then ask the poll worker for a new ballot.
Help Brendan pay off his student loans
> If someone even offers to buy your vote they would face tens of thousands of dollars in fines plus jail time. It's not worth the risk, someone will blab.
You say it's not worth the risk, but the Democrat party is doing so openly and publicly in Pike County, Illinios and elsewhere. Here's the Illinois vote buying statute:
Sec. 29-1. Vote buying.
Any person who knowingly gives, lends or promises to give or lend any money or other valuable consideration to any other person to influence such other person to vote or to register to vote or to influence such other person to vote for or against any candidate or public question to be voted upon at any election shall be guilty of a Class 4 felony.
Note it's a felony to give someone any "valuable consideration" (prize) to vote- regardless of whether they prove WHO they voted for. It's illegal to send a mailer out to all registered Democrats and people likely to vote Democrat saying "come vote and we'll give you _____." Yet that's what the Democrats did, openly. They set up an office next door to the polling place, 89 feet away to be exact, and sent mailers to likely Democrat voters promising prizes if they came out. It's standard practice for the Democrat party in many areas to have "voter party buses", which give out free food and prizes while driving people to the polling place. Yes, it's a felony, but that doesn't stop people from doing it.
My god. Has the land of the free become so incredibly incompetent at democracy that it does not realise a key feature of a secret ballot is removing evidence (intentional or not): about how someone voted?
Do people really not understand that this created unsure this party pressure on how people vote? No? Still cannot see it?
'We all voted for xxx.. Why didn't you Facebook YOUR vote Debbie! We thought you were one of us! Obviously not!'
Still not seeing it?
Sad.. I guess Americans really do deserve the system they have created.
What you aren't seeing is that there are much bigger problems with our democracy than whether the ballot is secret or not. It has been known since the time of the Greeks that our kind of democracy leads to oligarchy. Furthermore, our democracy has turned into a tyranny of the majority, which it was also not supposed to.
Still not seeing it? I didn't think so. Europeans really know little about democracy, its meaning, or its history.
That's why we need verifiable ballots. Both paper and electronic voting could be designed so that your vote can be verified, but without a third-party being able to coerce you. It's an age-old problem with decades-old solutions, but when we put in these poorly-implemented voting machines with no audit trails, we lost all that.
The legislators are answerable to their constituents, but citizens are not answerable to each other.
If you are ALLOWED to post a selfie, then you can also be FORCED to post a selfie proving you voted the way you were threatened to vote.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
We don't have the elections we need, we have the election we deserve.
Of course this whole shit started because some stupid celebrity was charged of doing that.
The idea is extremely simple, and I think everybody should have learned about this in school. Voting needs to be secret not as an option, but as an obligation to keep it as fair as possible. It became a law for a reason, not out of a whim or something.
The moment selfies in ballots become legal is the moment a bunch of candidates will start trying to rig the system.
I'll give you this or pay you this much, but only if you vote for me. If you don't vote for me your boss will fire you. You go there, vote for me, take a selfie, publish it, and then we'll be ok.
If people think stuff like that won't happen, they are delusional. It's in the history of every democractic country. It's why the law is there in the first place.
It's also ridiculous that someone would imply that political expression on social networks is dependant on such a frivolous idiotic thing.
Yeah, you took a fucking stupid selfie in front of a ballot, how politically engaged you are. Now go save some african children from starvation and poverty by giving some likes. Powerful form of political expression my ass. This is the weakest most lazy form of political expression I've ever heard about.
Not if someone tries to browbeat into voting his way. That's the whole point behind making a secret vote mandatory.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
If you go into the voting cabin yelling "Vote A", you come out yelling "Vote A", drop your ballot with a "Vote A" and tell everyone on your way to the door that they better "Vote A" because that's what is going to save the country, that's freedom of speech.
Showing someone your ballot isn't.
The difference is easy: I can say whatever I want. I can yell from the top of my lungs that I support A while actually, secretly, voting for B. Ballots have to be secret to avoid buying vote or intimidation.
And no, voluntarily showing that you vote a certain way 'cause everyone knows you're going to vote that way anyway isn't acceptable either. Because then wanting to vote in secrecy could already be seen as "dissent". Not trying to Godwin here, but the "Anschlussabstimmung" 1938 in Austria would actually be a really good example of why this is a problem.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
If you want to give up your right to casting a secret ballot, you should be free to do so.
All this hyperventilating about "vote buying" and "undermining the election" is utter crap. Unless you can show a printed receipt of exactly who you voted for, any photo is meaningless. Old style machine - until you pull that handle to open the curtain your vote is not recorded and may be changed. Scanned ballots? Oops! I made a mistake, rip this one up and give me another please, thanks!