In the late 1800s, New Hampshire enacted legislation
prohibiting voters from showing their completed ballots to anyone for the purpose
of proving how they voted. The statute sought to address the apparently widespread
problem of politicians purchasing votes for their candidates. Effective September
1, 2014, the New Hampshire legislature updated the law to
specifically prohibit persons from “taking a digital image or photograph of his
or her marked ballot and distributing or showing the image via social media or
by any other means.” The American Civil Liberties Union has filed suit
claiming that the law violates the First Amendment.
Illinois does not have a similar statute. Section
29-9 of the Illinois Election Code makes it a Class 4 felony for a person
to “k
nowingly mark[]
his ballot or cast[] his vote on a voting machine or voting device so that it
can be observed by another person.” Section 29-9 also prohibits anyone from knowingly
observing a voter marking a ballot. And while a Peoria Journal Star article
indicates that
it might be a violation of this statute to take a photograph of a completed
ballot and then post it on social media, that interpretation seems strained. The statute is clearly intended to prevent a person
from standing in such proximity to a voter in the polling place so as to allow observation
of the actual act of voting. The law does not mention displaying a completed
ballot after the fact. Even a New York law that specifically prohibits showing a marked ballot to
another has reportedly been interpreted by
lawyers of the New York State Board of Elections as not prohibiting the posting
of a ballot photograph on Facebook.
Whether legal or illegal under the
Election Code, people might consider the advisability of displaying their
voting record on the internet in perpetuity.
No comments:
Post a Comment