ACLU Fights For Ballot Selfies

Though California lawmakers repealed statutes preventing citizens from taking pictures in the voting booth, those laws remain on the books through January 2017. The ACLU has filed a suit seeking injunctive relief to protect voters who want to take and share “ballot selfies,” like Justin Timberlake did recently. Courts around the nation, including Michigan, Indiana, and New Hampshire, have blocked enforcement of bans on voting booth pictures on constitutional grounds. “Digital photography, the internet, and social media are not unknown quantities – they have been ubiquitous for several election cycles, without being shown to have the effect of furthering vote buying or voter intimidation,” the First Circuit wrote in a Sept. 28 ruling.