[EL] Why the Selfie is a Threat to Democracy"
Rick Hasen
rhasen at law.uci.edu
Tue Aug 18 08:23:31 PDT 2015
Try to imagine this 10 or 20 years in the future and without a selfie
ban ballot selfies will be ubiquitous, making ferreting out their use
for fraud that much more difficult.
Of course there should be very light punishment for unknowing violations
so as not to sour young people on democracy. But the ban can be used to
prosecute more serious organized cases, which I think are only bound to
grow as the selfies become so common.
On 8/18/2015 8:12 AM, Michael McDonald wrote:
>
> I encourage you to carefully think out the entire cost-benefit
> analysis of ballot selfie bans. You would have law enforcement arrest
> a person in a polling location for taking a ballot selfie, disrupting
> the activities in the polling location and sending some otherwise
> innocent young person to jail, souring them on democracy, for what? An
> extremely low probability event that a campaign would orchestrate a
> vote buying scheme. There are better ways to steal an election with
> lower odds of being detected. I imagine ballot selfies are a rare
> event themselves (I’ve never witnessed one). As I said, a campaign
> that uses selfies as a way to verify votes is asking for people to
> post their vote buying on social media. Furthermore, poll workers
> might notice a dramatic upswing in the number of ballot selfies.
> Ballot selfies are just a dumb way to subvert an election. Is it
> possible some campaign will use them? Of course it is. But applying
> common sense, a vote buying scheme using ballot selfies is a low
> probability threat coupled with higher odds of detection. Weighed
> against the costs of enforcement to the police and burdens imposed on
> otherwise naïve voters, there are much better things that we can
> expend our time and resources on than making ballot selfies illegal.
>
> *From:*law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu
> [mailto:law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu] *On Behalf Of
> *Rick Hasen
> *Sent:* Tuesday, August 18, 2015 10:50 AM
> *To:* law-election at department-lists.uci.edu
> *Subject:* Re: [EL] Why the Selfie is a Threat to Democracy”
>
> The big difference between the two cases is the costs vs. the
> benefits. In the case of a ban on ballot selfies, the cost is minimal.
> There are ample, ample ways to express one's support for a candidate
> aside from the single way (the selfie) which allows verification of
> how someone voted in the polling booth. So the cost of the prohibition
> is minimal, compared to the cost of voter id laws.
>
> Further, I actually think a national voter id law makes sense, as I
> argue in my Voting Wars book, to deal with problems such as double
> voting across states (a relatively real but rare problem), so long as
> it is coupled with a national program to register and pay all the
> costs associated with verifying voters' identities.
>
>
> On 8/18/2015 7:42 AM, Michael McDonald wrote:
>
> We should apply the same standard to voter id laws as to ballot
> selfies. What evidence can you provide Rick that there has been
> vote buying enabled by ballot selfies (not with mail ballots,
> specifically ballot selfies)? Why criminalize a behavior, forcing
> law enforcement to expend valuable resources to police it, when
> there are more pressing matters for them to focus on? It strikes
> me that existing laws regulating vote buying are sufficient. A
> candidate stupid enough to use ballot selfies as a way to verify
> votes will likely find people posting their selfies on social
> media with the caption “I just made $20!”
>
> ============
>
> Dr. Michael P. McDonald
>
> Associate Professor
>
> University of Florida
>
> Department of Political Science
>
> 223 Anderson Hall
>
> P.O. Box 117325
>
> Gainesville, FL 32611
>
> phone:352-273-2371 (office)
>
> e-mail:dr.michael.p.mcdonald at gmail.com
> <mailto:dr.michael.p.mcdonald at gmail.com>
>
> web:www.ElectProject.org <http://www.electproject.org/>
>
> twitter: @ElectProject
>
> *From:*law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu
> <mailto:law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu>
> [mailto:law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu] *On Behalf
> Of *Rick Hasen
> *Sent:* Tuesday, August 18, 2015 10:21 AM
> *To:* law-election at uci.edu <mailto:law-election at uci.edu>
> *Subject:* [EL] ELB News and Commentary 8/18/15
>
>
> Why the Selfie is a Threat to Democracy”
> <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=75414>
>
> Posted onAugust 18, 2015 7:20 am
> <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=75414>by*Rick Hasen*
> <http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
>
> I have writtenthis commentar
> <http://blogs.reuters.com/great-debate/2015/08/17/why-the-selfie-is-a-threat-to-democracy/>y
> for Reuters Opinion.
>
> /What could be more patriotic in our narcissistic social-media
> age than posting a picture of yourself on Facebook with your
> marked ballot for president? Show off your support for former
> Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump, Senator
> Bernie Sanders (D-Vt.) or former Florida Governor Jeb Bush.
> Last week, a federal court in New Hampshirestruck down
> <http://www.buzzfeed.com/adolfoflores/new-hampshires-ban-on-ballot-selfies-is-struck-down-as-uncon?bftwnews&utm_term=4ldqpgc#.vsPZMbG18>that
> state’s ban on ballot selfies as a violation of the First
> Amendment right of free-speech expression./
>
> /That might seem like a victory for the American Way. But the
> judge made a huge mistake because without the ballot-selfie
> ban, we could see the reemergence of the buying and selling of
> votes — and even potential coercion from employers, union
> bosses and others./
>
> The case is more fallout from the Supreme Court’ssurprising
> blockbuster decision
> <http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/18/us/politics/courts-free-speech-expansion-has-far-reaching-consequences.html?ref=politics>ofReed
> v. Town of Gilber
> <http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/14pdf/13-502_9olb.pdf>t.
> The piece concludes:
>
> /Barbadoro also said the law was not narrowly tailored, given
> that nothing would stop someone from posting on Facebook, or
> elsewhere, information about how he or she voted. What this
> analysis misses is that a picture of a valid voted ballot,
> unlike a simple expression of how someone voted, is unique in
> being able*to prove***how someone voted./
>
> /Indeed, it is hard to imagine a more narrowly tailored law to
> prevent vote buying. Tell the world you voted for Trump! Use
> skywriting. Scream it to the heavens. We just won’t give you
> the tools to sell your vote or get forced to vote one way or
> another./
>
> /The social-media age gives people plenty of tools for
> political self-expression. New Hampshire’s law is a modest way
> to make sure that this patriotic expression does not give
> anyone the tools to corrupt the voting process. Perhaps the
> judges of the 1//^st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals or the U.S.
> Supreme Court will see the error of Barbadoro’s ways./
>
>
>
>
>
>
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>
> --
> Rick Hasen
> Chancellor's Professor of Law and Political Science
> UC Irvine School of Law
> 401 E. Peltason Dr., Suite 1000
> Irvine, CA 92697-8000
> 949.824.3072 - office
> 949.824.0495 - fax
> rhasen at law.uci.edu <mailto:rhasen at law.uci.edu>
> hhttp://www.law.uci.edu/faculty/full-time/hasen/
> http://electionlawblog.org
>
>
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--
Rick Hasen
Chancellor's Professor of Law and Political Science
UC Irvine School of Law
401 E. Peltason Dr., Suite 1000
Irvine, CA 92697-8000
949.824.3072 - office
949.824.0495 - fax
rhasen at law.uci.edu
hhttp://www.law.uci.edu/faculty/full-time/hasen/
http://electionlawblog.org
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