Subject: Re: [EL] WWE merchandise at Connecticut polls
From: Vince Leibowitz
Date: 10/25/2010, 6:10 PM
To: "election-law@mailman.lls.edu" <election-law@mailman.lls.edu>

When I think of McMahon's candidacy, it paints the "Smackdown Your Vote" program WWE started in 2008 in an entirely different light. 

Also, you've got to love the way some local officials interpret the anti-button and "distance from the polling place" laws. In 2002, a local uproar was created in my former home county because the county clerk and elections administrator made the county judge vacate his designated "official" parking place because his truck was littered with a collection of partisan and candidate bumper stickers for candidates on the ballot and was located on a side driveway of the courthouse next to the place where prisoner transport vans parked--putting it well within the 100-foot boundary and next to a door that, in theory, people could walk in to access the polling place (though few did). To this day, I wonder how the Texas courts would have interpreted Texas Election Code 61.010 with regard to that truck and his parking place--especially since the reason for that parking assignment was for the safety of the county and district judge who heard misdemeanor and felony cases respectively so they would not have to walk two blocks to the employee parking lot. 


On Mon, Oct 25, 2010 at 3:05 PM, Rick Hasen <rick.hasen@lls.edu> wrote:
This is not a new issue.  There were lots of questions about Obama t-shirts in 2008.  See this article with a 50-state survey of the law:
http://law.bepress.com/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=4685&context=expresso
"You Can't Wear That to Vote": The Constitutionality of State Laws Prohibiting the Wearing of Political Message Buttons
Kimberly J. Tucker American University Washington College of Law

See also this:
http://www.snopes.com/politics/ballot/electioneering.asp

http://www.khou.com/news/Obama-T-shirt-Serves-as-Voting-Dress-Code-Reminder-105478623.html



On 10/25/2010 12:21 PM, Richard Winger wrote:
The Connecticut Secretary of State's rule is not sensible.  Should California bar a voter from wearing anything that refers to e-Bay or Hewlett-Packard?

On reflection, I think all bans on what voters wear at the polls are silly.  I would draw a line between someone handing out literature or buttons at a polling place, versus someone entering a polling place merely to vote (and not staying longer than that) who happens to be wearing something indicating a state of mind about the election.  These clothing bans treat the voters as though they were little children.

--- On Mon, 10/25/10, Volokh, Eugene <VOLOKH@law.ucla.edu> wrote:

From: Volokh, Eugene <VOLOKH@law.ucla.edu>
Subject: [EL] WWE merchandise at Connecticut polls
To: "election-law@mailman.lls.edu" <election-law@mailman.lls.edu>
Date: Monday, October 25, 2010, 11:48 AM

               I was wondering whether list members had thoughts on this:

 

http://articles.cnn.com/2010-10-22/politics/connecticut.elections.wwe_1_linda-mcmahon-poll-workers-vince-mcmahon?_s=PM:POLITICS

 

Republicans lashed out Friday after the Connecticut secretary of state said poll workers would have the right to ask voters wearing World Wrestling Entertainment merchandise to cover up because it could be considered campaigning.

Republican Senate candidate Linda McMahon left her job as chief executive of WWE to run for office. And a spokesman for Secretary of State Susan Bysiewicz said McMahon is so closely associated with the organization that wrestling garb could easily be construed as political advertising.

"It's not that much of an inconvenience in the few minutes that you're voting that you don't serve as an advertisement for somebody'spolitical campaign," said Av Harris, a spokesman for Bysiewicz.

 


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