I think this can be regarded as a photograph of the First Amendment concept known as "the chilling effect."
ADDED: This is why it's good for law to be negative. Let the government say what it's forbidding me to do. Don't tell me what I'm permitted to do. It gives the impression that I need affirmative permission for everything.
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I am pretty sure both FL and NC prohibit photos inside the no-campaign limit.
Perhaps I'm missing something here.
-XC
PS - have taken my kids into the polling booth, but not to take their picture
My point is, I'm not in the "polling place." Notice the arrow. I haven't violated the rule stated in the first line. But I'm also not outside. I haven't gone to the place where, I'm informed, I can "feel free."
Ah, so you're standing inside the boundary to Gitmo practicing free speech before you cross into Cuba....
-XC
It's Republicans suppressing the voting of People of Color.
Because that picture is on a refrigerator?
https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/news/2016/11/06/ballot-selfie-beware-s-often-illegal-despite-flurry-late-attempts-change/93299316/
Probably a good idea though, since voting is supposed to be private, in a way, and perhaps the possibility of photographing others' ballots.
But I did worry I might be doing something wrong. Absurdly, the only reason I wanted to do what I was doing was because the sign bothered me by creating a gray area that struck me as photographable.
In the world of the future, it doesn't matter if you're not free, as long as you feel free.
My wife and I were at Versailles years ago and a sign we could not read was on the grass. She stepped into the grass to read it and a guard came running to tell us it said, "Keep off the grass" in French.
Actually curious about this. Is the no photography restriction a rule or a law? If it is a rule - who enforces it and how?
I did a quick look for Wisconsin polling place restrictions and could not find anything definitive (quick not exhaustive).
The sign in the picture seems like someone is making it up as they go along
I did a quick look for Wisconsin polling place restrictions and could not find anything definitive (quick not exhaustive).
So you'll be able to beat the rap even though you won't beat the ride.
This makes sense if the sign is in the forbidden area, but it could be clearer about where the boundary is.
"Get your ass outside the VOTE HERE sign!"
Millennials must be directed delicately.
Do this, don't do that, can't you read the sign?
"Don't tell me what I'm permitted to do. It gives the impression that I need affirmative permission for everything."
Amen, amen, amen!
But be careful, you're on the verge of being accused of being a conservative if you look at things this way!
Probably a good idea though, since voting is supposed to be private, in a way, and perhaps the possibility of photographing others' ballots.
I was told the idea is that you aren't supposed to photograph your own ballot, to prevent its use a proof in "selling" your vote.
Sorry Ms. Althouse, but aren't you being a little too lawyerly? The problem is probably that selfie-crazed millennials want to take pictures showing where they are and what they are doing. There are good reasons to prohibit cameras in polling areas themselves, so haven't they just provided a sign that lets them prove what they are doing? In other words, the poster should be interpreted as "If you must take a selfie for all your friends on social media that proves you voted, here's a sign we've provided for you that does the trick." and not "You can only take pictures by this sign and nowhere else, not of the pictures on the halls or of the bathroom doors or whatever".
Perhaps it is more of a guideline than a rule.
There does seem to be a Wisconsin law (and other states) about photographing a ballot. And laws about observers taking photographs in the polling place. It would be too much to ask to have the sign call out to law specifically so you could see if you are in compliance. Or just let the retirees and high school kids working there push you around.
Triangle Man: I was told the idea is that you aren't supposed to photograph your own ballot, to prevent its use a proof in "selling" your vote.
Also to protect you from being coerced into a vote - "I'm going to fire you if you don't vote the way I want you to," or similar.
I am curious as to what is actually illegal in Wisconsin. CNN has a story from November 2016 that says it this way, "Wisconsin: The state would rather you not take a pic with your marked ballot." To me, that says it's legal but officially discouraged.
The Huffington Post goes farther, "Wisconsin: Under the Wisconsin Government Accountability Board’s interpretation of state law, “no voter or observer may use any video or still camera inside the polling place while the polls are open for voting, except for news media.”" But all I can actually find on the Board's website is "Don’t take a picture of your ballot: Some voters want to share pictures of their ballot with friends on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, or other photo sharing apps. But under Wisconsin law it is illegal to show your marked ballot to another person, which is what you would be doing if you took a picture and shared it online."
And all I could find in the Wisconsin laws was this about posting a "copy of the election fraud laws provided in s. 12.13 (1) and (3) (intro), (d), (f), (g), (k), (L), (o), (q), (r), (u), and (x), together with the applicable penalties provided in s. 12.60 (1)."
I don't see anything there about photography per se. These prohibitions could be relevant but not per se prohibitive of all photographs:
"(f) Shows his or her marked ballot to any person or places a mark upon the ballot so it is identifiable as his or her ballot.
...
(n) Receive a ballot from or give a ballot to a person other than the election official in charge.
(p) Receive a completed ballot from a voter unless qualified to do so.
(q) Solicit a person to show how his or her vote is cast."
It seems to me that a picture of a ballot is not a ballot, so unless you are showing or soliciting, I think you may be in the clear.
Again, I was not IN the polling place. I was outside of the room that is the polling place. Notice the arrow that points to "POLLING PLACE."
But I am inside the building, the First Congregational Church.
what it's forbidding me to do.
Thanks for the good grammar. Most of your fellow bloggers would say, in error, "what it's forbidding me from doing." Emetic. Read your Bible (I Thessalonians 2:16).
Left Bank of the Charles : “no voter or observer may use any video or still camera inside the polling place while the polls are open for voting, except for news media.”
Because the first amendment provides protection for the news media and not just regular people. Right. They are more responsible.
"Sorry Ms. Althouse, but aren't you being a little too lawyerly? The problem is probably that selfie-crazed millennials want to take pictures showing where they are and what they are doing. There are good reasons to prohibit cameras in polling areas themselves, so haven't they just provided a sign that lets them prove what they are doing? In other words, the poster should be interpreted as "If you must take a selfie for all your friends on social media that proves you voted, here's a sign we've provided for you that does the trick." and not "You can only take pictures by this sign and nowhere else, not of the pictures on the halls or of the bathroom doors or whatever"."
1. I don't read signs and think it doesn't apply to me if I'm not the sort of person that made them adopt this rule. I think it's an important ethical principle that the rules apply across the board, to me as well as to everyone else.
2. I agree that the second sentence was written with the idea that it merely conveyed friendly advice. Hey, kids, there's a sign outside that would make a great place for photography. But I don't like the impression that photography in the building is banned when it really isn't (I don't think). That's the chilling effect. I'm free to do something, but the way the govt has communicated what has forbidden makes it seem as though even more is forbidden, and I'm writing this post to complain about that.
But the sign appears only to prohibit photos in the polling place, not in the rest of the Church.
I agree with you regarding the nature of the law. A limited government should lay out what you should not do, allowing for freedom of choice in other matters. We used to have an expression, "it is better to beg forgiveness than to ask permission" as a key to leadership.
The 10 Commandments seem to be constructed along the lines of your concept of law. Thou shall not is a lot more prevalent than Thou shall...
The Professor is right again. The first sign of illegitimate control being exercised over you is to communicate that the approval of the controller is needed. They start that tactic by giving you their approval on silly things. This is also true in the spiritual realm as a way of detecting witchcraft.
Good old Tom Jefferson confronted this in his use of "UN-alienable rights". Mere inalienable rights are still open to crafty deal making for cash or for approval.
The sign says, "don't take pictures inside the polling place". You are not inside the polling place yet, just in the church.
As a parent, I have noticed that my children tend to be better behaved if I tell them what I WANT them to do. "Stop jumping on the couch!" doesn't work as well as, "If you want to jump, do it on the mattress in the guest bedroom."
I have also noticed that it works on my husband. "Stop looking at your phone so much". Doesn't work so well as,"come help me with the laundry". If you don't give people the direction of the "positive behavior" that you want to see, they are less likely to do it.
Basically I'm sayin that if I were a poll worker, I totally would have written a sign like that.
But it's helpful to see that "positive behavior" direction rubs some people the wrong way.
"Feel free to take photos or selfies by the sign outside..."
...if you absolutely must.
I would just have a sign that says "Don't even think about it! Just to mess with people's heads.
Secrecy of the ballot is something that used to be valued. Even when I started voting in 1968, it was considered offensive for people to ask you who you voted for. But in an age of "Friends Don't Let Friends Vote Republican" that's passe. Now, even "woke movies are accompanied by voter registration drives. (Can you imagine trying to register as a Republican a a Black Panther showing?)
I suppose prohibiting photography at or outside a polling station is a vestige of a day when people thought it was none of anyone's business who or even if they voted. On the other hand, it might be a good idea for Republican poll watchers to station a photographer prominently outside each polling place, taking each voter's picture, as a way of discouraging voting fraud (i.e., same guy voting multiple times under different names.)
This is why it's good for law to be negative. Let the government say what it's forbidding me to do.
The government would rather point out it lets you live and that should be good enough for anyone.
I would just have a sign that says "Don't even think about it! Just to mess with people's heads.
Then you could round up a few people for thinking about it.
Signs Signs
Everywhere there's signs
Fucking up the scenery
Breaking my mind
Do this, don't do that
Can't you read the sign
'Again, I was not IN the polling place. I was outside of the room that is the polling place. Notice the arrow that points to "POLLING PLACE."'
Isn't that really a question of fact to be established at your felony trial?
We don't know where you were standing in relation to the arrow on the wall. You might have been using one of those selfie sticks. And the prosecutor might well argue that the polling place begins at the Vote Here sign outside the building. The word "place" applies more naturally to the building and the area immediately around it then to just a room.
I think your better defense is the question of law, that it's not illegal to take pictures in a Wisconsin polling place. You and Meade should provoke your local prosecutor into prosecuting. There would be so many great issues for the U.S. Supreme Court to consider in Wisconsin v. Althouse.
If you see a street sign that says "One Way" with an arrow, it doesn't mean that the street is two way up to the point of the sign. We'd have to know if there were other signs with arrows that you would have encountered before your reached the "Polling Place" sign. We do know that there was (or should have been) at least one, the "Vote Here" sign next to the sidewalk.
Even if one were to accept that the whole building is not the polling place, one might have to concede that the marked pathway through the building to the room(s) where ballots are cast is part of the polling place.
My favorite sign is still the ones every 500 yards along the big fencenext to the road heading down into the Columbia River basin in Washington State. They say, " It is illegal to look in this direction."
Of course we looked, and we saw the Hanford Nuclear Weapons Plant
I heard a NASCAR commentator some years ago who was addressing some sort of controversy over teams cheating. He said that one of the crew chiefs that people were bitching about had the philosophy of "Don't focus on what the rules prohibit, but rather what they don't." There was (and probably still is) a never-ending spiral of new rules, followed by people exploiting the loopholes, followed by new rules, etc.
Copying mail-in ballot?
As souvenir!
I voted, and saw neighbors. Best part of voting!
It was easy not to vote for the person who wants to use the Judiciary to subvert the Democratic process.
I, for one, hate early voting because they don't always have the "I Voted!" stickers.
Incentives matter.
The explanation that banning photography makes it harder to sell your vote is bogus.
There's nothing to prevent you from: (1) fully marking your ballot, (2) taking a photo of it, (3) telling an election official that you have accidentally spoiled your ballot and you want another one, and then (4) voting however you damn well want.
As anyone who seriously wants to buy your vote would know.
P.S. Who are these vote-buyers? Where are they when I need a few bucks in November?
Plus, you could just vote by mail-in absentee ballot and take a photo of it in your own home. Hell, you could make a video of yourself putting it in the mailbox.
"As a parent, I have noticed that my children tend to be better behaved if I tell them what I WANT them to do. "
that's kinda the thing, I love my rich Uncle Sam; but he is NOT my parent.
openidname: The explanation that banning photography makes it harder to sell your vote is bogus.
There's nothing to prevent you from: (1) fully marking your ballot, (2) taking a photo of it, (3) telling an election official that you have accidentally spoiled your ballot and you want another one, and then (4) voting however you damn well want.
Did you just say that making it illegal to take a picture wouldn't work because you could always just take a picture?
Your subsequent point about mail-in voting is valid, though. I'm guessing the "no photography" law predates mail-in voting.
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Un Venezuela is illegal but public officers and social welfare recipients are forced to take a photo of their vote . If they don't, the are fired or took out of the role
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