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Lawsuit Seeks To Block New York Ban On 'Ballot Selfies' (msnbc.com) 317

Posted by BeauHD from the right-to-a-selfie dept.
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.
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Lawsuit Seeks To Block New York Ban On 'Ballot Selfies' More

Lawsuit Seeks To Block New York Ban On 'Ballot Selfies'

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    • 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.

    • 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

      • > 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

        • This happens practically every major election:

          http://www.politifact.com/pund... [politifact.com]

          I recall during the 2004 elections it was done pretty openly by Democrats, under a program called "smokes for votes".

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by guises ( 2423402 )
            From your link:

            Carlson said that Democrats give Newports to the homeless to get them to the polls. Based on the evidence, Carlson is citing an isolated case where authorities were unable to prove that votes were traded for cigarettes, or that the cigarettes were an enticement. On one occasion in Milwaukee, as many as three Democrats gave rides to homeless men to City Hall to cast absentee ballots. At some point, they gave some of the men cigarettes. There is no evidence that the cigarettes were Newports, and investigators did not find that the cigarettes were offered as an inducement to vote.

            This is a pathetic citation. I'm sure there's shady business going on here and there, and that's especially true when your standard for evidence against a huge group is the slightly dubious actions of a few individuals, but even by that pretty worthless standard this example fails.

        • 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.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by maugle ( 1369813 )
            The GOP had this coming. Back when they decided to start cozying up with the Tea Partiers, they didn't have the foresight to realize that this would be the inevitable result, and now their party is ruled by whoever manages to shout the loudest and act the craziest.

        • Re:They are publicly buying votes in Pike County, (Score:5, Interesting)

          by rtb61 ( 674572 ) on Thursday October 27, 2016 @09:09PM (#53165889) Homepage

          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.

        • Re: (Score:3)

          by Gorobei ( 127755 )

          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.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by AK Marc ( 707885 )
          Paying a registered Democrat to vote isn't vote buying. That registered Democrat is not being directed to vote Democrat. Thus, it's not a vote buying. You might as well argue that the "I voted" stickers given out are vote buying.

          • You're a reasonably intelligent guy, Marc, so I imagine if you read the statute again you'll notice it *is* vote buying:

            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.

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by AK Marc ( 707885 )
              So, let's re-write that:

              Any person who knowingly gives [...] valuable consideration to any other person to influence such other person:
              [to vote OR to register to vote]
              committed a felony.

              Yup, the way you wrote it, the law says "encouraging someone to vote, or encouraging someone to register to vote, is a felony."

              So now, I'll move on from "that's not illegal" to "that's a stupid law that will be found unconstitutional the first time it's challenged.

              The Supreme Court has been sadly consistent in that mon

      • 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.

        Thats what mail in ballots are for, which are apparently becoming more and more popular and widespread. Mark the ballot at home, with a goon watching over you, mail the ballot in.

    • Re: because Photoshop doesn't exist (Score:5, Insightful)

      by thesupraman ( 179040 ) on Thursday October 27, 2016 @08:51PM (#53165777)

      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.

      • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

        by ooloorie ( 4394035 )

        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? Still not seeing it?

        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,

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by AK Marc ( 707885 )
        The secret ballot worked for the first 100 years of the USA (failed during a time of open rebellion, but worked fine with a stable country). Still not used in the Legislatures. Would you accept a secret ballot in votes for laws? Then why do you want to mandate it in the election of those same lawmakers?

      • When you remove the meaning of voting, people don't really care too much about it.

  • In Texas (Score:4, Interesting)

    by will_die ( 586523 ) on Thursday October 27, 2016 @07:41PM (#53165375) Homepage
    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.

  • Making it illegal to post your "Ballot Selfie" on social media does not achieve the goal they claim to desire: preventing Vote Buying.

    If someone is buying your vote, you can just take the picture/video and send it directly, or upload it to a private group, or any number of things. Publicly posting is not required at all.

    • Making it illegal to post your "Ballot Selfie" on social media

      That's why the law actually bans all photos and is much older than the "selfie."

      Public postings on social media are among the easiest to catch, so they're getting some news attention.

  • Vote-flipping Evidence (Score:4, Interesting)

    by os2fan ( 254461 ) on Thursday October 27, 2016 @08:35PM (#53165675) Homepage

    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.

    • Re:Vote-flipping Evidence (Score:4, Insightful)

      by MobyDisk ( 75490 ) on Thursday October 27, 2016 @09:23PM (#53165961) Homepage

      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.

    • Re:Vote-flipping Evidence (Score:4, Interesting)

      by drinkypoo ( 153816 ) <drink@hyperlogos.org> on Thursday October 27, 2016 @09:34PM (#53166009) Homepage Journal

      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.

      Are you a cop by any chance? Because you do not understand the rules of evidence. Evidence gathered by a citizen during the commission of a crime is still admissible in court. It's evidence gathered by a police officer that isn't.

    • 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.

      If "a lot" of videos have not done enough to change or secure the voting technology, a selfie law is going to do fuck-all for the cause.

    • Yeh, I know here is one of the more credible videos.
      https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=... [youtube.com]

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by clovis ( 4684 )

      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.

      What is happening is a combination of poorly calibrated machines and parallax on touch-screen devices.
      People touch one place and the adjacent spot is activated. All the voter has to do is touch again a bit higher or lower to get the vote they want.
      It's not changing the vote after the fact.

      The same thing happens on bank ATMs when you try to touch $20 but get $50 instead, but people realize this and don't post to Facebook that they think the bank is cheating them.

  • there is a reason for selfie bans in voting booths: it prevents vote buying.

    Seriously, what is wrong with vote-buying? Yes, selling one's vote is mildly disgusting (though should not be illegal), but buying something another person wants to sell? Why not? I know at least one guy, who is equally disgusted with Trump and Clinton — he plans to stay home this time. If someone else felt like offering him money to go and vote for their candidate, why should that be illegal?

    What are ethical justifications b

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Shados ( 741919 )

      If you ever thought politics were corrupt, wait until its literally just whoever paid the most for votes.

      There's no point in even having elections then.. Just put Bill Gates in charge and be done with it.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by mi ( 197448 )

        Just put Bill Gates in charge and be done with it.

        Actually, he'd be a better choice than most of today's Congress-critters...

        But, seriously, how much would this hypothetical Mr. Gates have to pay per vote to make a difference? People, who don't care, will sell theirs cheaply, but that's Ok — they didn't care anyway, so theirs is not an important vote. People, who do care, will need a substantial sum to "sell out"...

        Keep in mind, Hillary Clinton will spend a whopping billion [huffingtonpost.com] on her campaign — m

    • I notice that you are asking this question anonymously...

    • 130 million voters is 55% turnout, for 2012. To change the results, you need 5-10% change in vote totals, only considering additional voters. Swapping votes requires less.

      So 13 million voters out of the remaining 100 million, at most. Payments of $10 might mobilize some, estimate $100 million in payouts. Easily achieved. And races other than presidential, like congress, are significantly less expensive since they are state level or lower.

      So now both parties do it, and it becomes an auction for each vote. Ba

  • Place and manner (Score:3)

    by mysidia ( 191772 ) on Friday October 28, 2016 @12:05AM (#53166527)

    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.

  • Showing a marked ballot violates election safety (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Maxo-Texas ( 864189 ) on Friday October 28, 2016 @01:27AM (#53166733)

    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.

  • *facepalm* (Score:5, Insightful)

    by XSportSeeker ( 4641865 ) on Friday October 28, 2016 @02:13AM (#53166831)

    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.

  • Secret ballots are a right, not a duty. (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Ihlosi ( 895663 ) on Friday October 28, 2016 @06:52AM (#53167571)
    If you want to give up your right to casting a secret ballot, you should be free to do so.

    • If you want the right to be able to buy electoral rsults, you should be able to.
      FTFY

    • free to do so.

      This is the part that's a bit hard to prove and the reason for the laws in the first place. If you are being coerced to vote for a certain candidate, and must take a photo or else, that's not evident. This is the only safe way.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by Sabriel ( 134364 )

      Wrong. Secret ballots are a right AND a duty, for exactly the same reason guns are in the Second Amendment.

      You have the right to bear arms. You have that right because it is "necessary to the security of a free State". What you do NOT have is the right to leave your loaded gun laying around out in public where anyone can use it or record your ownership of it on a list.

  • Completely False (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Lawrence_Bird ( 67278 ) on Friday October 28, 2016 @10:12AM (#53168509) Homepage

    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!

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