Ballot selfies not protected by First Amendment, federal judge rules
A federal judge has ruled that voters are not free to take selfies with their ballots in polling places. The case involved a North Carolina woman who sued the state board of elections after posting a photo of her voting and was told to take it down or face prosecution. (Image from Shutterstock)
A federal judge has ruled against a North Carolina woman who sued the state board of elections after posting a photo of her voting and was told to take it down or face prosecution.
Susan Hogarth of North Carolina filed the lawsuit in 2024, after posting a selfie on X, formerly Twitter, that showed her holding her ballot while voting in the Libertarian primary, Courthouse News Service reports.
The state board of elections contacted her and asked her to take the post down, notifying her that it was a Class 1 misdemeanor.
Hogarth sued, claiming that the state’s laws prohibiting ballot photography violate the First Amendment. When she returned to the polls in November 2024—armed with a court order allowing her alone to take pictures of her ballot—she was instructed by polling place staff to stop taking photos and delete them—before staff called the state elections board to confirm that she had an exemption, according to Courthouse News Service.
U.S. District Judge Louise Flanagan of the Eastern District of North Carolina, an appointee of former President George W. Bush, disagreed that the First Amendment extends to ballot photography in a summary judgment order Monday.
Polling places are a nonpublic forum, Flanagan said in her 15-page order dismissing the case, and they are held to a more lenient standard in First Amendment challenges.
The government is allowed to have content-based restrictions on speech, as long as they are reasonable restrictions and not because public officials oppose the speaker’s view, the story noted.
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