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No Obama Tees! Obscure Laws Banning Electioneering May Cause Hassles At the Polls For Voters
**By Vinita Singla, Megan McGibney**
Don't wear your favorite Barack Obama T-shirt or your shiny John McCain campaign button Nov. 4: You might get hassled at the polls.
An obscure, seldom-enforced state law bars anyone from wearing political buttons and other campaign paraphernalia within "a 100-foot radial measured from the entrances of the voting booth."
With the election just over a month away, the law is suddenly gaining notice: an email begging potential Obama voters to "PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE" leave T-shirts and buttons home on Election Day is circulating on the Internet -- spurring worried calls and emails to state election officials. The New York Civil Liberties Union plans -- for the first time -- to include a similar warning in its voter information materials.
Meanwhile, Republican leaders in Pennsylvania are calling on officials to enforce that state's similar "passive electioneering" law banning campaign paraphernalia at the polls, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported Sept. 19.
In New York, election officials said they would stick to the law even as they tried to downplay concerns.
No Jail Worries
"No one will be thrown in jail over a shirt at the polls," said state Board of Elections spokesman Bob Brehm, whose office has been bombarded by calls and emails from worried voters.
But Brehm noted that anyone wearing a campaign button or T-shirt will be asked to remove the item.
Jason Weingartner, executive director of the New York Republican County Committee, said the law is a good one - as long as it's consistently applied. "It doesn't put undue pressure on individual voters who are exercising their constitutional rights," he said.
City Councilman Charles Barron (D-Brooklyn) agreed, but added that in his experience the law "isn't as strictly enforced as it should be."
Palyn Hung, a NYCLU staff attorney, said her group is including warnings about the law on its voters' rights cards.
"We're not saying you're absolutely prohibited (from wearing campaign paraphernalia), but we're advising people that they might not be allowed to go in" to the polls, she said.
History of Lax Enforcement
While election and party officials are familiar with the law, the general public isn't. Voters wearing campaign buttons to the polls largely have been ignored for years, said David Epstein, a political science professor at Columbia University.
The law "is generally not enforced in New York or it's enforced unevenly. Sometimes, they'll let you wear bumper stickers though they will definitely kick you out if you start soliciting people," he said.
New York City Board of Elections Executive Director Marcus Cederqvist, though, recalled a long-ago brush with poll workers.
"I was forced to remove a button once," he said.
Steve Richman, the city Board of Elections' general counsel, said the law is at least three decades old - and carries a penalty for those who refuse to comply.
"It's a misdemeanor -- seven months to a year in jail," said Richman.
No one, though, could remember anyone being put behind bars for wearing a campaign button to the New York polls. But some officials recalled voters who went to extreme measures to try to evade the law.
"One year, a voter brought in a sheet cake with a candidate's name and an inspector smeared the name with a knife," said Helen Kiggins, the commissioner of elections in upstate Onondaga County.
Phone and email messages left with the Obama campaign did not get an immediate response. Peter Feldman, a McCain campaign spokesman in New York and New Jersey said, "We are okay with the law."
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This post originally appeared at NYCity News Service.
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My sister lives directly across the street from a polling location and her house wil be plastered with Obama signs as I am sure many other homes on her block will be.
Expect the Rovians to do everything imaginable--and a lot that's not imaginable--to suppress voting, especially in minority communities, as they do each election year.
What crap. Most people know who they are voting for when they get to the polling place. If they do not know then they don't belong there. No matter where you go today you see polical garb or buttons. This better not discourage young voters who probably will not get the message, get angry if they are told about it and leave. This is what the rep. are hoping for. Just another ploy, since although this may be a law on the books it has never been inforced in my area. In fact I have never heard of it before. The rep. are backing this like the caging they are doing to try and steal this election. It is just pure panic on their part. I will go with my pin I always wear and unless they are willing to arrest me I will keep it on.
Leave it or cover it; if your candidate wins, you can put it around your head like a turban, and party like there's no tomorrow... after you vote and get him elected. No more stolen elections.
If you forget, turn your shirts inside out to vote.
Once again, the idea is to show support and our numbers by wearing plain blue shirts when going to vote. Unless they decide to outlaw the color blue in the days remaining before election. If it happens I suggest let's go vote 'le naturale".
I will say: obey the law. Your vote is more important than your tee-shirt, but if wearing a tee-shirt or a button that shows your candate of choice is going to influence some voters , I feel real disturbed as it just tell you that people did not do their homework! Also how about people who work ouside the polls distributing lietrature? don't they influence people also? I am an Inspector of Mionority for many years, because I get paid for my job I am not allowed to wear anything that shows my preference, but for other voters, I find this law disturbing. Democracy????
If you forget, just turn your shirt inside out.
I was asked rudely in the '04 election in Ohio to remove my Kerry button. I'd advise all not to even chance it on election day ! Show your support by voting............
Sounds like people need to hit polling sites with baskets of XL t-shirts to insure Obama voters who don't get the message aren't prevented from entering the polling stations to vote.
Why not have teams of Obama supporters on hand with donated plain or non-political T-shirts to offer anyone who might accidentally show up in one of these forbidden outfits? Unless the enforcement of the law results in arrest, it should be no problem to change your shirt, go vote, and come back and change again.
Am I wrong?
I can't say that I've NEVER seen such blatant ignorance of our elections' laws, but the ranting-n-raving here sure comes close.
I'm a poll worker, And A Democrat, AND A FERVENT SUPPORTER OF SENATOR OBAMA, and I fully support the BAN on wearing POLITICAL t-shirts, camapign buttons, etc., INSIDE A POLLING PLACE; or, as it is here in AZ, within 75' of the entrance to a polling site.
You're free to wear your t-shirts and buttons, AND CAMPAIGN, outside of whatever barrier limit is established by your state's electioneering law, so your First Amendment right to Free Speech is NOT be trampled upon. We're going to have enough problems on Election Day without having to deal with the inevitible brouhahas that would erupt if folks were allowed to wear their McCain or Obama 'chum' inside the polling places.
If ANY of you were a poll worker on a regular basis, you would understand why such bans are in place and ALWAYS enforced. the column writer's claim that thse bans are "obscure laws" is a FALSEHOOD -- poll workers are trained before each and every election to NOT allow electioneering within the designated limit.
In 2004, I had to ask a huffy Republican to cover up her (ugly!) Bush-Cheney '04 PURSE; and I'll probably do likewise on this Nov. 4th... and I'll enforce the rule FAIRLY and CONSISTENTLY.
If you don't like it, don't go vote. THAT will 'teach us,' huh?
(jeesh... get a life!)
So what happens if I show up in an Obama shirt, I don't get to cast my vote? Banning poll workers from electioneering is one thing. Restricting the votes of ordinary citizens based on their clothes is another thing entirely.
mredder4, it's electioneering no matter WHO wears it -- you, or the poll worker or your five-year-old kid who comes along with you to the polls. What will happen if you show up to the polls in an Obama shirt is that a pollworker will ask you to please leave the voting area, cover it up or change it, and come back and vote. This is a law that's been around forever, and while the distances for electioneering vary from state to state, ALL states have this in their election laws, and as KenBJs points out above, pollworkers ALWAYS enforce it, on both sides of the ideological fence.
Hopefully the local Dems all over the US will invest in a pile of cheap white t-shirts of varying sizes to pass out to offenders as necessary. I'm bringing a sweatshirt with me to the polls to help out, too (I'm a pollworker and I'm on the tables all day, from before 7am until we close).
I don't have a problem with the law.
But your comment seems to contradict itself. You say:
"If ANY of you were a poll worker on a regular basis"
pointing out that this is part of your training, and you probably would agree that most people aren't regular poll workers. Then you say:
he column writer's claim that thse bans are "obscure laws" is a FALSEHOOD -- poll workers are trained before each and every election to NOT allow electioneering within the designated limit.
Basically proving the point, that these laws are "obscure" to the average voter, who isn't trained to be a poll worker.
So get off your high horse as a poll worker and realize that these laws aren't common knowledge to the citizenry, and that this article is providing a service by raising that awareness before election day to some the process, and limit the number of people that you must remind at the poll.
Is this really a problem? If it comes to it, just take your t-shirt off!
Its not enforced in the sate of sc, a district thirty one representative, named horold mittchell, was inside several polling places with his mown tee shirt about hime on..he went from one polling place to other heavy voting spots. I asked the election board about it and they said it was ok, I don't see how when they want let you put signs but so close..he was a walking living sign...thats the sate of sc for you.."they are waiting to do whatever it is they intend to do, again"
As soon as I hit the "Post a comment" button, I'm going to send an email to the Natl Obama headquarters
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