Do Not Post Pictures of Your Completed Ballot on Social Media

Do Not Post Pictures of Your Completed Ballot on Social Media

  • By Ginger Hill
  • Nov 04, 2014

Today is Election Day and Google produced a Doodle that will tell you exactly where you need to go to cast your ballot based on your address. Super helpful. But remember that in this day of photo-sharing madness, it is illegal in many parts of the United States to take photos of a completed ballot. Suggestion: Leave your smartphone at home. 

For years, lawmakers have protected the sanctity and anonymity of the voting booth by not allowing photos. This has also protected voters’ identities and doesn’t put undue pressure on a person to vote a certain way. For example, if you saw a picture of your favorite movie star with his or her ballot flash across Twitter or on Facebook, this could persuade your vote.

So serious is the “crime” of posting photos of your completed ballot on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook, Pinterest and other social media sites that steep fines are being issued, up to $1,000 in the state of New Hampshire, and some are even having their votes invalidated.

In response to this, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of New Hampshire sued the New Hampshire state government to allow photographing and posting of completed ballots. At least three New Hampshire residents have been investigated for already doing so, including a former police officer who completed his ballot with his deceased dog’s name.

Should ACLU win its law suit, they feel that a common form of political participation and civic engagement could be used as a “powerful form of political speech.”

While posting pictures of completed ballots may seem harmless, I feel that it could quickly spiral out of control in a negative way, making a right that we have as Americans because of our service men and women become a way for hackers, criminals, etc. to use voting for malice.

About the Author

Ginger Hill is Group Social Media Manager.

Featured

  • Cloud Adoption Gives Way to Hybrid Deployments

    Cloud adoption is growing at an astonishing rate, with Gartner forecasting that worldwide public cloud end-user spending will approach $600 billion by the end of this year—an increase of more than 21% over 2022. McKinsey believes that number could eclipse $1 trillion by the end of the decade, further underscoring the industry’s exponential growth. Read Now

  • AI on the Edge

    Discussions about the merits (or misgivings) around AI (artificial intelligence) are everywhere. In fact, you’d be hard-pressed to find an article or product literature without mention of it in our industry. If you’re not using AI by now in some capacity, congratulations may be in order since most people are using it in some form daily even without realizing it. Read Now

  • Securing the Future

    In an increasingly turbulent world, chief security officers (CSOs) are facing a multitude of challenges that threaten the stability of businesses worldwide. Read Now

    • Guard Services

  • Security Entrances Move to Center Stage

    Most organizations want to show a friendly face to the public. In today’s world, however, the need to keep people safe and secure has become a prime directive when designing and building facilities of all kinds. Fortunately, there is no need to construct a fortress-like entry that provides that high level of security. Today’s secured entry solutions make it possible to create a welcoming, attractive look and feel at the entry without compromising security. It is for this reason that security entrances have moved to the mainstream. Read Now

Most   Popular

Featured Cybersecurity

Webinars

New Products

  • Luma x20

    Luma x20

    Snap One has announced its popular Luma x20 family of surveillance products now offers even greater security and privacy for home and business owners across the globe by giving them full control over integrators’ system access to view live and recorded video. According to Snap One Product Manager Derek Webb, the new “customer handoff” feature provides enhanced user control after initial installation, allowing the owners to have total privacy while also making it easy to reinstate integrator access when maintenance or assistance is required. This new feature is now available to all Luma x20 users globally. “The Luma x20 family of surveillance solutions provides excellent image and audio capture, and with the new customer handoff feature, it now offers absolute privacy for camera feeds and recordings,” Webb said. “With notifications and integrator access controlled through the powerful OvrC remote system management platform, it’s easy for integrators to give their clients full control of their footage and then to get temporary access from the client for any troubleshooting needs.” 3

  • FEP GameChanger

    FEP GameChanger

    Paige Datacom Solutions Introduces Important and Innovative Cabling Products GameChanger Cable, a proven and patented solution that significantly exceeds the reach of traditional category cable will now have a FEP/FEP construction. 3

  • QCS7230 System-on-Chip (SoC)

    QCS7230 System-on-Chip (SoC)

    The latest Qualcomm® Vision Intelligence Platform offers next-generation smart camera IoT solutions to improve safety and security across enterprises, cities and spaces. The Vision Intelligence Platform was expanded in March 2022 with the introduction of the QCS7230 System-on-Chip (SoC), which delivers superior artificial intelligence (AI) inferencing at the edge. 3