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Judge Refuses To Block New York 'Ballot Selfie' Law (reuters.com)
Last week, we wrote about a federal lawsuit that is challenging a New York state law that makes it a misdemeanor to show a marked election ballot to others. Today, we learn that a federal judge has refused to block enforcement of the law. Reuters reports: U.S. District Judge Kevin Castel in Manhattan said it would "wreak havoc on election-day logistics" to issue a preliminary injunction against the law, which prohibits the display of "ballot selfies." Three voters sued on Oct. 26 to block enforcement of the law, saying that sharing ballot selfies was a form of speech protected by the U.S. Constitution's First Amendment. But the judge said that because of the imminence of next Tuesday's election, the voters needed to show a "clear or substantial likelihood" that their lawsuit would succeed before he could issue an injunction, and that they had not done so. "The public's interest in orderly elections outweighs the plaintiffs' interest in taking and posting ballot selfies," though they remained free to express their political message through "other powerful means," Castel wrote. Leo Glickman, a lawyer for the voters, said in an interview his clients were disappointed by the ruling and do not plan to appeal it, but will keep pressing their case ahead of the 2017 election cycle. "People should be able to express themselves freely by photographing their marked ballots and putting them on social media feeds," he said, adding that state legislators have expressed interest in having the law repealed.
If we allow this, we open things up so that people can be pressured to vote one way or another. People's votes are their own, they shouldn't have to answer to their bosses or anyone else about who they vote for.
People should be able to express themselves freely by photographing their marked ballots
Just go ahead and say it, "People should be able to provably sell their votes." Because that's what this would allow.
Can some one explain to me how one benefits by showing who they voted for? Is it just a side effect of today's generally narcissistic, social media driven society?
Sure, it's free speech to show your filled out ballot, but I feel election fraud is something we must prevent or else free speech goes out the window....
It's all about not letting people sell their vote. letting you take a photo of your ballot so you can prove you voted the way you were paid to vote is illegal.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
One of the most important aspects of our voting process is preventing coercion. This is done by making your vote as anonymous as possible. Imagine your boss comes up to you and demands that you vote a certain way or you will lose your job, and tells you to take a ballot selfie to prove it. If a ballot selfie is illegal, then no one can force you to vote that way. While I respect the first amendment argument, protecting voting rights is the more important concern here.
Ok, so taking a pictures of a vote is forbidden just because that would allow selling votes ? Am I the only one thinking something is wrong ? Sure, I don't see the point in doing a ballot selfie (as I don't see the point in selfies) but what the heck is this law ?
You should sue the ones who are buying votes. Period. If there are picture of people with their ballot, great, that would make it easier for the police to gather proofs.
Besides, is there any study that shows that making it illegal to take pictures lead to a lower rate of vote selling ??? I'm pretty sure if you want to sell your vote you're already doing something illegal, so taking a picture of it (and not posting it online) will not really change anything.
Reposting at the top level since nearly every other comment is getting this wrong...
Most (all?) jurisdictions allow a voter to request a replacement ballot, in the event of him making an error on the ballot. It would be trivial to take a ballot selfie with one ballot, request a replacement ballot, and vote differently.
This makes ballot selfies ineffective for vote-buying efforts.
The 1st Circuit Court court recognized that the NH law was unconstitutional because it bans protected political speech. NH's US Senator Ayotte is even planning to post her own ballot selfie, in violation of the NH law to prove the point.
NY is in the 2nd Circuit, so they will need their own decision until SCOTUS upholds the 1st Circuit decision.
Regardless, these bans aren't about vote buying - that won't work - they're about preventing people from expressing their political views on social media. Such postings have more benefit for insurgent candidates than establishment candidates, so the establishment is firmly against such efforts.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
the judge just didn't want to strike it down in the middle of an election. He already knew the law was bullshit. I'm a little miffed at his reasoning though. It seems to me enforcing it would make things worse on election day.
This is yet another voter suppression law pushed by the right wing. This is why we need mandatory voting. You can't suppress the vote when it's required.
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Rich people, corporations, the media, and super PACs, are all free to spend tons of money to influence elections. Yet a random person can't post a selfie of their ballot. Posting a selfie is basically the same as verbally saying "I voted for X." What the fuck, America?
With a selfie to prove it I will beat the hell out of you.
and just make it a felony to compel someone to reveal their vote. If anyone tries to do it enough times to swing an election it'll be pretty damn obvious when they do and we lock 'em up for 5-10 years for interfering with an election.
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... I'm gonna cuss someone out, if they're holding up the voting line, doing the selfie, check, re-selfie a dozen times. /difficulty: lives in L.A.
Nate Silver over at the 538 blog has a good (and depressing if you're a Democrat) article on why early voting doesn't translate into election victories. As for posting your vote it's basically activism. It's not illegal (nor should it be) to say who you voted for (for the record I voted Hilary already). Displaying the ballot is no different, it just makes the point in a more salient fashion.
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WTF is unclear about "Congress shall make no law ... abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press"???
I fully understand the rationale for the NY law in question, and I agree that it makes sense and is probably a good idea. But holy shit is it absolutely unconstitutional. You can't override the first amendment with state law.
This controversy is absurd to me. Then again, your whole election system is absurd. It is perplexing that you can't do this right, while Brazil does -- and hell knows we're not often the best example of doing anything right.
So, here's how we do it:
* Voting is mandatory from age 18 to 70. Miss it and you have to pay a small fine.
* The whole country votes at once: always a Sunday, from 8AM to 5PM. Early voting is not possible.
* Voters are assigned the polling place closest to their address, down to the room. Voting elsewhere is not possible.
* Federally issued photo ID must be presented for voting.
* Bringing cameras to the booth is strictly forbidden (you can leave your phone with the poll worker while you vote).
* The whole country uses the same electronic voting machine, a simple and rugged design.
* Polling places are heavily policed, making voter intimidation, canvassing, and machine tampering unlikely.
This system is very efficient, the result is always tallied and announced in a couple of hours after the polling places close.
Circumcision is child abuse.
Trump has been campaigning to get some people to change their votes. Apparently several states allow that. But how can you enforce vote secrecy and modifications at the same time?
As for booth selfies, display the voter's choice up until reaching the confirmation screen, then don't display it afterwards.
I never liked seeing so many self centered people in the first place.
It's a form of speech that infringes on the democratic principle of a secret and un-coerced vote. In the USA, voting is a privilege, not a right; and a small bunch of self-righteous misanthropes are turning a privilege that many hard-working Americans can't access, into an ego-stroking advert.
This is easy to solve, as a commenter noted in the last discussion of the subject: just let people vote multiple times. Then, only count the last ballot. In fact, four states already do this.
Very simple, let a person take as many selfies as they want (proof of vote secured). But by no means are they allowed to make it public. At this point it's a sealed document in case of fraud. If it ever was released via getting hacked then the voter is liable.
Nothing like a little personal responsibility to rain on some ones parade.
In the US, about half the populace isn't at all interested in politics and political affairs. They spend their time on other things, so they don't know who the current vice president is or who the incumbent governor is. This isn't necessarily *bad*; maybe they are spending their time looking for a cancer cure or feeding homeless people. In any event, they haven't paid any attention to politics and don't know who the governor is, and they couldn't name a single treaty signed in the last ten years. Knowing nothing about politics, economics, foreign affairs, etc, they end up supporting a reality TV star or something.
It seems to me there are two general ways to do it:
A) Have the president chosen by people basing their decision on "I saw a commercial once" or based purely on race and gender.
B) Have the president chosen by people who are interested enough to learn a bit about the candidates and the issues, and make the effort to show up on election day.
It would seem, from my perspective, that compulsory voting means "people who have no interest in, and no knowledge of the issues, who don't even want to vote, must flip a coin and choose a candiate- and those clueless disinterested votes count just as much as votes from people who researched the issues". That seems like a TERRIBLE idea. Is it that different in Australia? Do people actually know anything about the issues and the candidates, or is it purely a battle of the 2-second sound clips, each candidate fighting for the 50% of voters who haven't a clue?
Here, it's popular to say "voting is important. I won't tell you who to vote for, but it's critical that you go vote." I say the opposite. I say "if you don't know who the vice president is, if you'd rather play video games than learn the name of your governor, you don't need to select the next governor. Go ahead and play video games on Tuesday. You can leave the voting to people who care."
The fact is that eventually votes are going to be block chained. At which point, every vote will be able to be validated during, and any time after the polling is completed.
The state has a problem with a person being able to take a selfie of a ballot, because at some point in the future, (hopefully the near future) people are going to realize that they have a reasonable expectation of demanding the state reproduce their ballot after the poll.
I understand the coercion problem. That is why jails were invented. It has nothing to do with taking a selfie at the poll.
So, this is easy. We just have to turn this over to the public sector. We pay Disney a small fee to put a picture of Mickey Mouse on every ballot paper. If people photograph it and post the pictures then Disney can sue the pants off them for copyright violation.
Problem solved - and as a plus we can subtly reinforce the idea that voting for Mickey Mouse as a write-in candidate might be a better idea than any of the other choices!
www.sjbaker.org
IMHO, this law, the lawsuit, and the ballot selfie itself are pointless distractions. These days, everyone know who the political fanboys/fangirls are going to vote for so the selfie is old news. Voter ID, on the other hand, is a worthwhile endeavor if you can find a way to convince people that a free government-issued ID is not a poll tax. My question is how the hell you function in life without a photo ID these days.
Phrasing free speech as an absolute creates emphasis but it's not literally absolute!
Yelling fire in a crowed place is the classic example. The reason that is an exception to the rule is the free speech of 1 doesn't trample the rights of everybody else to not die. Treason would never be possible because any act of treason could be described under free speech.
PAYING FOR VOTES or invading anonymity of voting greatly UNDERMINES democracy. It's more treasonous than most acts. The self-centered selfie pricks need a beating; they are clearly too stupid to reason with if they are still pursuing this.
Selfies are for narcissists.
We ALREADY have people who don't know who the vice president is voting. In 2008, around half of Obama*voters* didn't know who Dick Cheney was (he was the vice president). We say "you must vote" and many do. Lacking any relevant information, they fall back to choosing based on skin complexion, gender, or other irrelevant "flip a coin" things. I wouldn't be suprised if half of Trump and Clinton voters can't name the current vice president, or their governor.
Again, there's nothing WRONG with not knowing who your governor is- maybe you have more important things to worry about. However, you wouldn't want someone who doesn't know what Windows is to select a computer for you; you wouldn't choose a car based on suggestions from a guy who hasn't heard of Toyota or Ford. Similarly, those who don't know who Mike Pence is probably shouldn't be voting for him or against him.
Having just come back from Japan, there's lots of societal norms they have over there that just were well, amazing to behold.
You don't talk on the subway or play loud music, or even take a phone call. And museums have strict 'no picture' guidelines for some of their collections, and definitely 'no pictures' for the internal rooms of any shrines or temples.
So, to allow people to take pictures inside of a polling station, for me, is just idiocy. The orderly processing of people through the polling station MUST take precedence over your desire to take photos. And besides, if we allow photos, then people in power could start demanding them, and that violates your right to a secret ballot.
Funny, the reality of the situation is votes for Clinton are already being flipped to Trump.
Voters have also been reporting Trump-to-Clinton flips in several states, and several locations in some of them, since early voting started.
(This is the first time I've seen it alleged to go the other way. Maybe the Clinton camp was getting ready to challenge a loss after the Trump polling spike?)
Of course, if you Google for "vote flipping", the only things you find in the first couple pages are the Clinton-to-Trump report and election official denials of the Trump-to-Clinton claims.
The latter are phrased as if they were just Trump's tweet, too. The several news reports of people reporting them seem to be conveniently absent.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
"fuck you, prole, that's why"
free speech vs safe elections. It's easy to get that balance. My boss forces me to vote Trump. So what, it's 1 vote. My boss forces 20,000 employees to vote Trump. Now we're talking. But now there's 20,000 people who can give witness to his crime. I'm not legal expert, but I think it'd be really, really hard to commit a crime with 20,000 witnesses.
From there just run up the penalties and throw a few folks behind bars. Problem solved.
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they weren't created to prevent voter intimidation. There's plenty of other laws for that. They were created to prevent young activists from sharing their voting preferences in a meaningful way and thereby swinging the election to the left (which is what the sorts of young people who take ballot selfies are likely to be since they're too young to have enough property yet to fear losing it).
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