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 Journal Star, daily newspaper for Lincoln, Nebraska, has this editorial, criticizing the 2016 law that raised the number of signatures for a non-presidential independent from 4,000 signatures to 10% of the number of registered voters.

On September 27, California Governor Jerry Brown signed SB 568, which moves all partisan primaries, in all years, from June to the first week in March. It takes effect after 2018.

He didn’t act on other interesting election law bills: (1) AB 469, which eases petitions in lieu of filing fee; (2) AB 837, which provides that independent voters must be fully informed about which primary they can vote in; (3) SB 149, which requires presidential candidates in primaries to releases their tax returns. He has until mid-October to act on those bills.