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Like many North Carolina residents, Susan Hogarth visited her local school in March to vote in the primary election.
After filling in the ovals next to the names of two Libertarian Party candidates, Hogarth held the ballot under her chin and took a photo of herself with her phone. She posted the selfie from the voting booth on X.
The next week, Hogarth received a letter from the North Carolina State Board of Elections that accused her of committing a misdemeanor, according to a new lawsuit.
North Carolina is one of several states that prohibit taking photos or videos of filled-in ballots. The state’s board of elections said ballot photos “could be used as proof of a vote for a candidate in a vote-buying scheme.”
The state board asked Hogarth to remove her selfie from X, according to a copy of a letter shared by Hogarth’s attorneys. Hogarth refused, and on Thursday she filed a lawsuit arguing that the state’s ban on ballot photos violates voters’ First Amendment rights.
The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina, named members of North Carolina’s and Wake County’s boards of elections as defendants. Spokespeople for both boards declined to comment.
Hogarth voted on March 5 at Yates Mill Elementary School in Raleigh, where she entered a booth that was sectioned off on a table by a privacy screen. She filled in her votes for Libertarian Party presidential candidate Chase Oliver and Libertarian Mike Ross for the state’s governor.
Her selfie showed her ballot and a sign in the background that said photos were prohibited. She posted the selfie after leaving the polling place that morning, writing that she disagreed with the ban.
. . . Hogarth found that she wasn’t the only person to disagree with the regulations. Many states restrict what ballot photos are allowed and where they can be taken — an issue that came into the national spotlight in 2016 when singer Justin Timberlake removed a selfie of his Tennessee ballot from Instagram.
New Hampshire passed a law prohibiting ballot selfies in 2014, but two courts struck down the ban after calling it unconstitutional. California and Colorado began allowing ballot selfies in 2017 after reversing long-standing laws.
A federal judge in New York, meanwhile, refused to authorize ballot selfies in 2017, saying the absence of photos in polling places protects against fraud and prevents delays at the polls. Texas prohibits photographs within 100 feet of a polling station.
