INDIANAPOLIS (WOWO): Indiana's ban on selfies of your election ballot has been challenged in federal court.
The ACLU of Indiana sued on behalf of its members, claiming Indiana's blanket ban on taking any picture of the ballot you cast violates First Amendment free speech rights. The ACLU's legal director, Ken Falk, filed the suit just over two weeks after a judge struck down a similar law in New Hampshire.
The law took effect this year, and its author says it was intended to protect the secret ballot and to prevent people from buying votes and was consistently with other laws that ban campaigning at polling places. “You don't want to enable a situation where someone is paying someone to vote a certain way or intimidating them to vote a certain way, and their proof would be a picture of the ballot,” said Sen. Pete Miller (R, Avon).
But Falk says lawmakers essentially approved a solution without a problem. “We are dealing with the most rigorous scrutiny of government activity, and the government has to have actual justification for it,” Falk said. “It can't just hypothesize there might be problems.”
A federal judge in New Hampshire ruled on August 11 that a ballot picture is political speech protected by the First Amendment, nullifying that state's ballot selfie law ahead of the it's “first in the nation” presidential primary. Falk says the idea of the secret ballot is not dead by virtue of that ruling or, he hopes, a similar ruling in Indiana, saying the ballot is only as secret as the voter would like. “This allows me to demonstrate who I voted for if that's what I wish to do. If I want to waive that secrecy, I certainly have the right to do so,” Falk said.
New Hampshire has said it will appeal the ruling in that state.
Falk says the ACLU is suing on behalf of all its members – there have been no complaints from voters since no elections have been held since Indiana's law took effect.
The case is Indiana Civil Liberties Union Foundation, Inc., d/b/a American Civil Liberties Union of Indiana v. Indiana Secretary of State, et al., , and the suit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Indiana in Indianapolis.
