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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.
What about people who vote by mail?
"99 dead duelists of Dios on the wall. 99 dead duelists of Dios! Take one's ring, pass it around..."
Especially since it won't be just payment (pretty minor thus easy to turn down), but loss of a job, social ostracism and so on.
The creatures outside looked from Alt-Right to Antifa; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
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
In Texas they came out and said the reason was for the privacy of others. You have no right taking pictures of others in the voting place be it directly or in the background so they are not allowed within 100 meters of the voting area. Since you cannot have a camera in the area there is no camera in the privacy of the booth.
You would think so at first glance, but when you vote by absentee ballot nobody knows you're voting that way. If your boss tells you to vote a certain way or lose your job, you can tell him you vote in person and can't take a photo of your ballot.
Of course if you're selling your vote, absentee ballots make sense. But in that case, you're just an idiot who would probably make a poor choice on your own anyway.
I've voted absentee since the late 70s. If I didn't tell anybody I voted that way, nobody would ever know.
A misdemeanor is a criminal offense, just not a serious one.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
That being said, I think that vote-buying or other fraud should be considered a serious crime. Not sure about ballot selfies, though.
If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
You are comparing apples to oranges while talking about bananas.
I mean ignoring the easy ability to manipulate a photo, or change your vote and then sign next to the vote "Changed my mind". A law against selfies does nothing to prevent someone from doing it discreetly. It's not like you go through a metal detector or are waved for bugs.
Prosecute vote buyers and sellers. Not the technology which enables it. 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.
If you blackmail someone into doing it and then prove it... I guarantee that person will find a way.
1. USPS loses about 3% of all letters. Would you be willing to take a 3% risk that your vote is never received?
I call BS. If the rate were that high, all USPS customers would be up in arms, demanding improvements.
And furthermore, you're conflating letters that are truly lost or destroyed (a very tiny percentage) with those that are undeliverable because they are improperly addressed. That's unlikely to happen with a mail-in ballot that is mailed in an official pre-addressed envelope.
If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
Allow Internet voting, with the following modification.
Authenticated voter can vote any number of times over a period of one month. Only a hash of their identity is stored with each ballot.
Authenticated voter can come back to the system at any time during the month, and either vote again, or select which ballot, by date and time submitted they wish to be counted as their real vote. If they don't specify, then either their first vote, or their last vote is counted, depending on a setting they can secretly pre-set before the election.
So the vote buyer or asshole husband has no way of knowing which vote of the person was counted, short of imprisoning them for the whole month.
People who get imprisoned for a month to control their vote have much bigger problems than the right to vote freely. They need to escape and contact the police.
Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?
Mail-in votes are currently being counted in a lot of states. And I don't know what your last point has to do with anything. Vote anyway. Take a pic anyway if you feel like it.
> 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.
There are already a lot of videos circulating that show vote-flipping, where you vote for A, but the machine records B. Making selfies illegal would make the evidence that this has happeened inadmissable in court.
OS/2 - because choice is a terrible thing to waste.
You are taking about the bananas again, but let me "draw the dots" for you.
United States of America = Country (or Apple)
Europe = Continent (or Orange)
The banana bit comes in equating free speech with photos, they are not the same thing, ask all of the pedophiles in prison that tried that one on.
It may have appeared retarded to you, but that was because you did not understand the statement, and yeah, what you don't understand may appear retarded.
I mentioned that "voter party busses" giving stuff to people while driving them to the polling station is standard operating procedure for Democrats. Some people with stunted intellectual development will see that and think I said "Republicans are perfect". Obviously that's a complete non-sequitur, but some people will think that.
For the record, the Republican party has other issues. This year, they've managed to nominate, against the wishes of party leaders, a reality show clown.
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.
You can not do it, if the vote is anonymous. That is the real danger, that stupid selfie thing is a direct threat against democracy. Allow selfies and you allow selfies to be forced. Vote the way you are told to or else and I want to see the selfie. How many freaks would force that on their family members or on others. Get caught taking a selfie vote and you should spend a week behind bars. The threat against democracy is extreme and should be punished.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
So if I host get-out-the-vote cocktail party for my friends in Illinois I should be convicted of a class 4 felony?
Either Illinois or you are insane. Readers can decide for themselves.
The potential for abuse has been dismissed by 3 federal courts and has never held up to even intermediate scrutiny. It just doesn't happen the way you think it can.
The legislators are answerable to their constituents, but citizens are not answerable to each other.
The lawsuit says publishing a voted ballot on social media can be a powerful form of political expression.
Sorry. Campaigning by the voting booths or threatening to hurt people who don't vote or who do vote differently from you would also be some powerful forms of political expression, but all those are also prohibited by lawful place and manner restrictions on free speech.
There are certain places where no public expression is allowed, and the voting booth is one of them, unless your 'selfie' is to expose some newsworthy thing, and not, say, what your votes were....
In other words.... campaigning, or taking selfies is prohibited, regardless of the content of your message or who you voted for, so it's not a particular restriction based on content of your message, so it's not considered an infringement on free speech rights.
So the while thing comes down to the definition of "influence". If I am nice to someone while wearing a campaign button, would that count as trying to "influence" their vote? It would also almost explicitly make it illegal for someone in a Make American Great Again hat to leave a tip in a restaurant. So any reasonable interpretation would mean "vote buying" in a more traditional sense, not just "being nice" to voters while representing a party.
Learn to love Alaska
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.
In some areas a misdemeanor can get you a year in county jail and a $10,000 fine (plus thousands more in legal fees defending yourself before you lose). Plus bail. Plus loss of your job because now you have a criminal record.
That's serious enough.
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.
Because they're my employers and I want to know whether my employers do what I hired them for.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
It did. 1938 in Austria. The outcome is very well known.
When it is allowed to vote publicly (and taking a picture of your marked ballot pretty much means this), it's very easy to scare people into voting publicly lest it would be assumed that they vote "wrongly". Because there's no reason to vote in secrecy if you vote how you "should".
Don't go there. Just don't.
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 you need to is look at Peter Thiel. He "voted" with his wallet, and he immidielty was met with all the negative response you'd expect for voting for "wrong" candidate. So it's already a problem in America, if you don't see it you're delusional.
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!
1. USPS loses about 3% of all letters. Would you be willing to take a 3% risk that your vote is never received?
I call BS.
Of course it's BS. Michigan is the only state to require reasons for an absentee ballot and most polls show MI to be going to Clinton rather than Trump winning by 10%. In fact, I bet this AC is overseas, sitting in Russia someplace.
At what point should get-out-the-vote initiatives be banned? Obviously, paying someone to vote Democrat or Republican or whatever is a serious threat to democracy, but paying someone to go to the polls and vote for their choice on the secret ballot isn't.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes