[EL] Why the Selfie is a Threat to Democracy"

Tue Aug 18 08:33:35 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.

They're already quite common, enough to prompt this article:

 http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/11/03/photo-polling-place_n_6095746.html

On Tue, Aug 18, 2015 at 11:23 AM, Rick Hasen <rhasen at law.uci.edu> wrote:

> 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
> <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
>
> 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
> <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
> *Subject:* [EL] ELB News and Commentary 8/18/15
>
>
> Why the Selfie is a Threat to Democracy”
> <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=75414>
>
> Posted on August 18, 2015 7:20 am <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=75414> by
>  *Rick Hasen* <http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
>
> I have written this 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 Hampshire struck 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’s surprising blockbuster
> decision
> <http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/18/us/politics/courts-free-speech-expansion-has-far-reaching-consequences.html?ref=politics>
>  of Reed 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
>
> 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 92697-8000949.824.3072 - office949.824.0495 - faxrhasen at law.uci.edu
> hhttp://www.law.uci.edu/faculty/full-time/hasen/http://electionlawblog.org
>
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-- 
Steve Klein
Attorney*
Pillar of Law Institute
www.pillaroflaw.org

**Licensed to practice law in Illinois and Michigan*
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