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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putting them on social media feeds," he said, adding that state legislators have expressed interest in having the law repealed.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.
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.
The laws were created to prevent vote buying and intimidation. If you had to prove to someone how you voted, this would be one way to do so. Making it illegal is the only logical way to prevent that.
Just another day in Paradise
Australian here - compulsory voting works quite well - it's not really compulsory voting, more compulsory attendance; you have to show up but the ballot is secret, so you can just write swear words on it and draw rude pictures if you want - and some do.
But it has a huge effect on the political discourse - because parties don't need to 'get the vote out', politics becomes largely a squabble over the middle ground, and extremists on either side don't tend to do so well. Our politicians are usually pretty boring compared to overseas. Given all the other things we have to do as part of society, showing up every few years to vote seems a fairly small price to pay to keep democratic government ticking over.
Not sure how it would play elsewhere, but it works well for us... as does the whole preferential voting system; you can put your least disliked major party second last, and vote for other people first without 'wasting' your vote.
Anyway, back on topic: the selfie thing is a problem, as it breaks the whole secret ballot shtick. I can see the free speech argument, but there's a reason for secret ballots; without them you can get intimidation, coercion, people selling votes etc... sometimes I think we forget that these things were hard fought for a long time ago, and they shouldn't be given up without a lot of careful thought...
Wer mit Ungeheuern kämpft, mag zusehn, dass er nicht dabei zum Ungeheuer wird.