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Judge Refuses To Block New York 'Ballot Selfie' Law (reuters.com) 248

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putting them on social media feeds," he said, adding that state legislators have expressed interest in having the law repealed.
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Judge Refuses To Block New York 'Ballot Selfie' Law

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  • Not a good idea... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 03, 2016 @07:12PM (#53209713)

    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.

    • by cold fjord ( 826450 ) on Thursday November 03, 2016 @07:16PM (#53209729)

      Agreed. This is an appalling example of thoughtlessness and idiocy that endangers democracy and clean elections.

      • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        How is it worse than postal and proxy votes? Or are you against those as well?

        • Actually, this is a good reason to be against the movement to unlimited postal and proxy votes that's so popular right now. They used to be tightly regulated just because of this concern.

    • Exactly. Why can't they just take selfies at the booth or at the polling station? Hell, they can even say "Look at me! I made a difference by voting for the lesser of 2 evils!" The whole point is to not show your marked ballot so that it remains a secret. These people can still make the exact same statement without showing a marked ballot.

      They won't figure it out until someone doxes them now that they're in the court system and harasses them over their votes. Now that would be ironic end to this.

      • by DaHat ( 247651 )

        Just because I take a selfie with a ballot marked for Clinton, #SMOD2016, Trump or Baba Booey doesn't actually show a cast ballot for that name. Easy enough for online virtual signaling or paid for votes to take a ballot, mark it in the desired way, take the photo, then market it again and return to an election official for a new ballot to replace the spoiled one.

    • 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.
      • by mark-t ( 151149 )
        The problem with that is that there will never be any proof that someone was compelling you to do it, and any suggesting that someone is compelling you would just be your word against theirs.
      • by dcw3 ( 649211 )

        It already is.

        http://www.acslaw.org/acsblog/... [acslaw.org]

    • If this is the case, should we not ban mail-in ballots as well?

    • Ballot selfies are not a problem, because after you take the picture, you can spoil the ballot and get another one. Unless you are assuming you are being accompanied to the poll, I don't think it's a problem.

    • On the other hand, couldn't absentee ballots lead to the same sort of thing?

      Though banning absentee ballots could completely lock some people out of the democratic process.

    • by mwvdlee ( 775178 )

      This.
      "Show me a selfie of your vote for Dr. Evil or else!"
      End of discussion.

    • by jdavidb ( 449077 )
      As if the people who get elected under the secret ballot system are any better than the people who get elected when we can freely show people our ballots. We get abused either way, and the abusers always justify it by saying it's for our own good.
    • by bigpat ( 158134 )

      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.

      And if we prohibit people from recording their own votes by their own choice then we are preventing people the one means at their disposal to prevent wholesale election fraud. Forget the 'hey I want to show my support' aspect. We have a system that totally relies on trusting a small number of people to not conspire to change the voting results as they see fit. If trust breaks down, as it has broken down today and will break down from time to time, then we need to give people the option of recording a cop

    • What's your stance on mail-in/absentee ballots, then?
    • It is hard to get too worked up over this. It isn't a huge infringement of our rights to regulate photography in a polling place. We already ban people from putting campaign signs and handing out voter guides within a certain distance of the polling place as it is.
      .
      This isn't the hill to die on screaming for freedom.

  • 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.

    • Some states allow you to vote more than once. They only take your latest vote. In those states taking a photo of a ballot paper doesn't prove who you voted for.

      • Why even risk it?

        Seriously, why is it so much to ask that people not make personally identifiable ballots?

        If you don't allow ballot selfies, then you don't have to worry about people buying/coercing votes, people trying to fake who they voted for, dealing with spoiled ballots/revotes, or any accusations or legal complications that might arise.

        Just don't fucking allow it. Problem avoided!
        =Smidge=

      • by dcw3 ( 649211 )

        Some states allow you to vote more than once. They only take your latest vote. In those states taking a photo of a ballot paper doesn't prove who you voted for.

        Link? Google only gave me references to it being illegal.

    • so you can prove you voted the way you were paid to vote

      Since every jurisdiction that I've heard of allows you to request a replacement ballot, only a fool would pay for a picture of a marked ballot.

      • so you can prove you voted the way you were paid to vote

        Since every jurisdiction that I've heard of allows you to request a replacement ballot, only a fool would pay for a picture of a marked ballot.

        I think you underestimate how many fools there are. How many people know they can get a replacement ballot? How many people will just do what they are asked when there is money involved?

      • by Boronx ( 228853 )

        You can tell if someone gets a replacement ballot.

        • How? In Minnesota they don't record who requests a spoiled ballot only that a ballot was spoiled. It gets marked as spoiled and then put into an envelope with all of the other spoiled ballots and you get a fresh one.
    • But should it be--the picture part, I mean.

      The argument is that the only reason you would take a photograph of yourself and your ballot, pay for processing the film, etc. is if you were being paid to do so. That might have been true back in the days of brownie cameras. But here in the 21st century, I can walk into a voting booth with a tiny video camera in my glasses that's linked to an app on the phone that will upload the video of me voting for whoever I was told to vote for. Poll workers would have no

      • You're making a false equivalence. You're also coming up with an obscure edge case in order to prevent the usual case of abuse. Most people are now walking around with cameras. Just because you could have snuck a camera into the polling booth before doesn't change the fact that previously it was rare and now it was common.

        The problem is that photographs of ballot papers make selling votes much easier and now most people have the means to do that easily. No one is worried about an army of vote sellers armed

    • If I want to sell my vote, I get an absentee ballot, sit down with the buyer, fill it out as they like it, seal it, sign it - and put into the mail. Done.
  • by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 03, 2016 @07:24PM (#53209771)

    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.

    • Asking you to vote for someone is illegal. So if someone can ask you to vote for someone, they can as well ask you to take a picture (which is illegal too). Oh, wait, in that case you are in trouble too so you can't even sue your boss later !

      That law makes really no sense to me.

      • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward

        Uhh.. what?

        asking for anyone to vote for anyone or anything is NOT illegal. That's literally how election campaigns work; they ask you to vote for them.

        REQUIRING someone to vote for something is illegal. However your boss could "recommend" you vote one way; and lay you off when you post a photo of yourself having voted differently "for unrelated reasons". Though you MAY have a case against them; best of luck proving it in court.

      • Asking you to vote for someone is illegal.

        Don't be silly. That's what elections are all about.
        It's illegal to offer certain varieties of inducements to vote in a certain way, such as threats of violence or firing, or promises of individual payments. Removing mechanisms that make vote-buying and voter intimidation possible is a good thing.

        The pity is, it's not illegal to say "If elected, I'll take every penny from people who earn over $10,000 a year and give it to people who don't earn that much."

    • How about mail-in ballots? How do we know even who is filling it out? If mail-in ballots are OK, why is a selfie such a big deal?

      • by Boronx ( 228853 )

        Mail in ballots are not OK. So many people see the obvious problems with ballot selfies, but don't have any concern for mail in ballots.

        Pieces of paper in a locked box. At the end of the night, the old ladies of the neighborhood count each ballot one by one in front of everybody. It works, it can't be hacked. Parents can't vote for their kids. It's just a bit slower and less convenient.

        • by sbaker ( 47485 )

          Yeah - mail-in ballots are a tremendous concern. This is concern is reflected in the crazy-quilt set of laws across the USA. Some US states allow postal voting to anyone who requests it without even asking for a reason. Oregon, Washington and Colorado *only* have postal voting (although you can drop your vote off at the post office on the day of the election...so it's not exactly "posted"). Some states only allow it for specific cases such as disability. Others say that those are the criteria but don't

    • You're right, we should make guns illegal to stop murder. It's incredible how slashdot flip flops on issues of the constitution. I have a better idea, why not introduce wrongful dismissal laws like most of the rest of the west if your worried about your boss coercing you and requiring a selfie.

      • by sbaker ( 47485 )

        You're getting confused over the "right to free speech" here. Nobody is trying to prevent people from displaying a legally taken photograph - posting it on facebook or whatever...banning *THAT* would be a violation of the freedom of speech. What they seek here is to make it illegal to take the photo in the first place. There is no constitutional right to take a photograph or to copy a document - and preventing people from doing that happens all the time (eg with copyright law, child pornography laws, s

    • by rastos1 ( 601318 )

      Really?

      Boss: you will vote for X or you are fired.
      Me: It is illegal to force me!
      Boss: I know. And on top of it, you will take a ballot selfie.
      Me: But that's illegal too!
      Boss: Do I look like I give a shit?

    • by sbaker ( 47485 )

      I agree - the concept of a secret ballot is critical to fair and independent elections.

      The right to free speech gives you the right to say "I voted for candidate A" without impediment. Banning cameras inside the voting booth doesn't impede that right in any way. The "right to free speech" isn't "the right to take photographs" - although it arguably is "the right to display photographs that you've taken". We could however, make the voting form, or the display on the voting machine be a copyrighted work -

    • by bigpat ( 158134 )

      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.

      How does the law in any way prevent what you describe? It doesn't. The coercion is already illegal, so why wouldn't it already prevent what you describe... secrecy. Ballot picture laws don't actually physically stop people from taking pictures of ballots and secretly sharing those with a single person, they just make it illegal to do so. Given a ballot booth, sometimes with a curtain, and a small camera such as those on every cell phone then there is very little likelihood of getting caught taking a pic

  • 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 [arstechnica.com] that the NH law was unconstitutional because it bans protected political speech. NH's US

    • I think the more compelling argument is that in the grand scheme (at least for anything but local elections), vote buying is a very bad investment, which you make reference to. This isn't an easy case though. There are reasonable arguments on both sides. However:

      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.

      Is not one of them.

    • You're assuming most people would take the extra step of asking for a replacement ballot. In a situation where it is the same amount of effort to vote for candidate A vs. B (anonymous voting) people will are more likely to vote for who they wish. This is in contrast to a situation where their boss expects a selfie, and in order for that person to "vote their conscience" and get a replacement ballot requires extra effort (regardless of how small), most people won't take that minor step. The average person te

      • by sbaker ( 47485 )

        Plus (in principle) your boss could station someone inside the polling booth and fire any employees who requested a replacement ballot after taking their obligatory corporate selfie.

        The ability to request a replacement is no guarantee of secrecy at all.

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      Nobody is stopping you from posting "I voted for _" on social media. If no one believes you without a picture of your ballot you've got bigger problems anyway.
    • Filling out a ballot, photographing, getting a second ballot and filling it out is a lot of work for the piddling amount a vote purchase is likely to pay. The person who'd sell his vote is immoral, and is also likely lazy (being moral takes extra effort.) Making vote buying more difficult is a worthwhile goal.

      Kelly Ayotte is not a deep thinker. She has already sacrificed many of the values and positions on which she was first elected. If she is re-elected, it's only because her opponent is a vicious flaming

    • The danger of vote buying is real, and you failed to understanding that a big part of the danger come from people who normally choose not to vote. It is a fact that in every election, many people choose not to vote. Maybe they think all the candidates are the same, or are simply not interested in voting. If some of these people, who normally do not vote, know that taking ballot selfies would allow them to get some money, they will simply vote the candidate who give them money, and they would not request any
    • by Boronx ( 228853 )

      You can tell if someone gets a new ballot. That isn't secret.

    • by Asgard ( 60200 )

      Couldn't you have a thug watch for people requesting replacement ballots at the polling station? Make it known that anyone who's on the list of targeted voters will get 'roughed up' on the assumption that their selfie was fraudulent? Best they could do then is spoil their ballot but cast it anyway.

    • The 1st Circuit Court court recognized that the NH law was unconstitutional because it bans protected political speech.

      That's a weird-ass definition of speech, because there is no law preventing you saying who you voted for. Taking a photo in a specific place is even less speech than libelling someone and the latter isn't legal either.

      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.

      Bullshit. You can s

    • Sorry you and the 1st circuit Judges do have it wrong. It isn't about free speech it's about the long history of vote coercion where employees or Union members were required to vote a certain way to retain employment, or even to avoid harm to self or family. Allowing selfies makes that type of coercion possible again. Yes you can redo the ballot, but if the coercive entity has a poll watcher observing you?

      These laws are in place for a reason. We know the history we don't need to repeat it. These bans a
  • 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.

    • I like this system. A lot. I'd amend it with:
      * Make voting day an official federal holiday. (Then we can keep the 2nd Tuesday in November date)
      * Use paper ballots with an electronic scanner for tallying. (best of both worlds)
      * Longer hours for voting. Maybe 7am to 6pm.
      * No absentee or mail-in votes, at all.

  • 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!

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