As collegiettes, our lives are consumed with selfies, but when our camera phones follow us into the polling stations, are we threatening our voting privacy by Snapchatting who we have placed that all important vote for, without even knowing it?
The New York Times reports that “ballot selfies” are invoking the concern of buying votes and voter intimidation: “But with the ubiquity of cellphone cameras, the argument goes, that hard-won privacy and security for voters is in danger. Vote-buyers, or a boss demanding that you support a candidate, could demand a photograph of the completed ballot to prove how you voted.”
Earlier this month, a New Hampshire federal court overturned a 2014 ban on voter selfies as a clear violation of voter secrecy, following in suit with laws in Indiana. A fine of $1,000 was set in New Hampshire for those who fail to comply with the voting selfies ban. “It’s a sacred area where you vote,” said William M. Gardner, the secretary of state of New Hampshire.
However, Gilles Bissonnette, the legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union of New Hampshire finds voter selfies to represent something entirely different. “The problem with this law is that it was an outright ban on an innocent form of communication,” said Mr. Bissonnette of the A.C.L.U. “It didn’t ban displays involved in vote buying or intimidation. It banned all displays, including ones that carried political messages.” The A.C.L.U. has subsequently sued in Federal District Court, with the plaintiffs being two Republican candidates that candidly posted their voting selfies on social media, along with a third plaintiff, a NH civilian whom was so disillusioned with the candidates that he wrote in his deceased dog’s name on his ballot. This resulted in all three receiving calls from the authorities and sparking fellow acts of voter selfies in NH on a common Facebook page.
On August 11, the law was struck down, as the state cited there wasn’t “an actual or imminent problem with images of completed ballots being used to facilitate either vote buying or voter coercion,” Judge Paul Barbadoro of Federal District Court in Concord said. “The new law is invalid, because it is a content-based restriction on speech that cannot survive strict scrutiny.”
Still, there are many who oppose the overturn and plan to appeal, believing it births the new era of buying and selling votes, no matter if the voter is even visible in the photo.
Let’s just hope emojis don’t squeeze their way into the discussion.