(NewsNation) — Some enthusiastic voters may have to resist the urge to post a photo of their marked ballot this election season as many states ban sharing ballot selfies.
Sharing selfies of completed ballots has become a way some voters show who they supported, but concerns over coercion and even bribery have led at least 14 states to make it illegal.
Voting in secret has long been a staple in American history, but the explosion of social media and ballot selfies has caused the secrecy issue to resurface, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.
Some free speech groups say voters should be able to share ballot selfies, which has forced lawmakers to weigh free speech against concerns of maintaining order against bribery, coercion and the risk of exposing others’ ballots.
There is no federal law regulating ballot selfies, leaving the issue up to each individual state.
What states make ballot selfies illegal?
At least 14 states have made it illegal to take a ballot selfie, according to the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression.
These include Alaska, Montana, Illinois, Nevada, South Dakota, Minnesota, Missouri, Mississippi, Ohio, West Virginia, New York, Massachusetts, North Carolina, South Carolina and Florida.
In Texas and Tennessee, ballot selfies during in-person voting are illegal, but there is no law prohibiting or allowing absentee ballot selfies, according to the group.
In Michigan, voters can post photos of their marked ballot as long as they don’t share them while they are at the polling place. However, voters cannot include themselves in the photo with their ballot.
Many other states do not have explicit laws on ballot selfies, including Oregon, Idaho, Kansas and Maine.
Some government officials have defended the restrictions, saying they could lead to a host of other problems for voters.
Former Idaho Deputy Secretary of State Chad Houck told Vox in 2020 that he worries that in the age of “cancel culture,” if “a secret ballot were breached, if people knew how other people were voting,” there could be consequences.
A spokesperson for Missouri Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft told the outlet that “the secrecy of your ballot ensures that there cannot be voter intimidation.”
Intimidation is also cited as a reason to preserve secrecy. In 2020, a Florida company president sent a letter in his employees’ paystubs that told them layoffs could be imminent if “Biden and the Democrats win,” KTRK-TV reported.
The outlet noted that “some employees … feel they were threatened with being laid off if they did not support President Donald Trump.”
Where are ballot selfies legal?
Several states have gone in the opposite direction and explicitly allowed voters to share ballot photos.
These states include California, Washington, Utah, Colorado, New Mexico, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Iowa, Alabama, Hawaii, Kentucky, Virginia and New Hampshire.
“Sharing a ballot selfie is a magnificent display of civic participation,” Marc Levine, the member of the California State Assembly who led the charge on amending the law in 2016 to allow ballot photos, told The New York Times.
Some groups pushing for ballot selfies to be legal in every state say the original intent to preserve secrecy was designed to prevent vote-selling and voter coercion, but that is no longer the case.
“The evil it was trying to address was a union boss or employer following workers into a polling place and making them show who they voted for,” Leo Glickman, a lawyer who argued that the law violates the right to freedom of speech protected by the First Amendment, told the outlet.
But there’s no evidence that is happening today, the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression said.
The group says that no state has offered even a single example of someone taking and sharing a ballot selfie for the purpose of committing a crime.
What is the punishment for posting illegally?
Punishments for posting ballot selfies in states where it’s illegal vary by each state.
In Nevada, a violation is a felony with a sentence of one to four years in prison and a fine of up to $5,000.
In Illinois, it’s a Class 4 felony, which carries penalties of one to three years in prison and a maximum fine of $25,000.
A selfie post will get a voter “not more than six months [in prison] or by a fine of not more than one hundred dollars” in Massachusetts.
In March, North Carolina voter Susan Hogarth received a letter from the North Carolina State Board of Elections threatening criminal prosecution because she posted a picture of herself with her completed ballot from the primaries on social media.
Election officials asked her to take down her post, but Hogarth refused and filed a lawsuit against the state Board of Elections over the letter.
The case is still pending.
