On September 28, U.S. District Court Judge P. Kevin Castel, a Bush Jr. appointee, upheld New York’s law that makes it a criminal offense for a voter to photograph his or her own voted ballot. Silberberg v Board of Elections, s.d., 16-cv-8336. Here is the opinion.
The decision says the ban is needed to prevent someone from bribing a voter to vote a particular way. The decision acknowledges the point that a voter could photograph the ballot, but not deposit it in the ballot box. Instead the voter might tell polling place officials that he or she had spoiled the ballot, and ask for a new one, which would be marked differently than the first ballot. Thus the voter could trick the person who had bribed that voter.
But, the decision says, when a voter obtains a new ballot from the polling place official, a notation is made on the sign-in register, so the person doing the bribing could later ask to see the roster for that precinct and see if the bribed voter had done that.
The decision also says that allowing voters to photograph their ballots might cause the voter to delay the process of voting, and make the people waiting in line suffer. Thanks to Rick Hasen for the link.
The SECRET ballot came along to END having the threats and bribes with exposed ballots — akin to having SECRET orders in WARtime — esp. now that there are lots of wannabee lawless control freak tyrant hacks in many governments.
The SCOTUS MORONS have perverted the 1st Amendment in the election process since the 1960s.
So we can talk for months about who we’ll vote for, but it’s a no-no to take a picture of us actually voting? Completely absurd, as is the judge’s reasoning for such a thing.
I fully understand the secret ballot as it pertains to intimidation or selling of one’s vote. However what about those of us who are proud of our choice of candidate and can not be intimidated or bought? This ban makes no sense. As for myself I voted for Jill Stein in November and posted it on Facebook. It’s my vote and my choice to show the whole damn world if I so chose.
Also – in the evil bad old days the bribed/threatened voter may have put special stuff on a *secret* ballot [aka marked ballots] — for the criminal tyrant hacks to see when the ballots were counted —
thus the LAWS making such *marked* ballots with special stuff on them to be void/illegal.
Thus there are the forces of Democracy and LAW versus the growing numbers of ANTI-Democracy and LAWLESS — nothing new in world history.
So leaking the content of ones’ ballot is not a First Amendment right, yet leaking other government documents is protected? Compulsory ballot secrecy makes one wonder what the election officials may be hiding. Maybe the Russians are behind people taking ballot selfies. Give me a break.
When the Congress was establishing laws for the election of Senators by the legislatures, there was a debate whether the elections should be by secret ballot or by an open record vote. Representatives from New England thought it should be by secret ballot. Those from the South, particularly where popular elections were by an open vote, favored an open vote. In Kentucky, voting was by voice vote. A representative from Kentucky suggested that secret voting was unmanly.
In Kyle Smith’s statement there is an implication that some persons are not proud of who they voted for or can be intimidated or bought; and that such persons would not post a ballot selfie. There is a form of intimidation in doing so. What if someone was concerned that you would unfriend them if they did not post a ballot selfie on Facebook, and were coerced into voting for Jill Stein?
Then… they can be unfriended and life can go on? I don’t care who it is, I’ll vote for who I vote for (although since I vote absentee, I’m unsure of how the application of such a law actually works for me; does it mean the fill-in actual ballot with numbers, because no one can tell anything from that anyway without trying hard).
The only blackmail I could see actually affecting people are threats of violence against them and/or family members, which, one, if it happens, will be an absolutely minuscule amount, and two, if it happened, one could report such a person to the authorities and be done with it. There will not be a massive, unreported hostage taking to change an election one way or the other. I find any explained reasons for taking away this choice from the voters preposterous.
I always err on the since of giving people the choice until such allowances present themselves to be a mass problem. Legalize ballot selfies, and in five years when there have been maybe 50 cases of ballot intimidation, we can forget about the issue and move on to other things.
Have some of the folks on this list ever heard about Stalin and Hitler and their purges ???
ie vote the regime way or get purged.
Some history — which means zero to some New Age morons —
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secret_ballot
I don’t care about that, though, because it is a person’s CHOICE to take a picture of their ballot, it’s not like it’d become mandatory if we got rid of these stupid laws. Once again, if you can promote a extradite for months for president, have a bumper sticker on your car, on the day of the election tell everyone who you’re voting for, what difference does posting a picture of you and your ballot make at all? It should 100% be the choice of the voter, period.
Fear-mongering about potential purges doesn’t do much, because people in some states get purged anyway (New York Democratic primaries, 2016) with this law in effect, so it doesn’t even prevent such things, unless you also want to make it illegal to say who you’re going to vote for on a social media site, which obviously wouldn’t fly.
Do the Crime – by CHOICE – do the time — in a slammer aka jail.
Demo, you’re missing the bloody point that it SHOULDN’T be a crime. Why the hell should anyone be jailed or fined for making a choice that doesn’t hurt anyone? It sounds like you worship the law as it is without any consideration when it’s just completely wrong.
JM$ —
form your own regime with exposed ballots and see how long it survives —
with back to the EVIL past bribes and threats.