[EL] Why the Selfie is a Threat to Democracy"
Rick Hasen
rhasen at law.uci.edu
Tue Aug 18 08:32:27 PDT 2015
Those who know don't talk and those who talk don't know.
On 8/18/2015 8:28 AM, John Tanner wrote:
> You don’t post the picture on social media and then wait for a check,
> you show it to the person who gives you the money, whiskey, or other
> substance. Honestly, doesn’t anyone on this list serve know how to
> steal an election?
>
>> On Aug 18, 2015, at 11:12 AM, Michael McDonald
>> <dr.michael.p.mcdonald at gmail.com
>> <mailto:dr.michael.p.mcdonald at gmail.com>> 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>
>> [mailto:law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu]*On
>> BehalfOf*Rick Hasen
>> *Sent:*Tuesday, August 18, 2015 10:50 AM
>> *To:*law-election at department-lists.uci.edu
>> <mailto: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 <http://electionlawblog.org/>
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>
>
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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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