In some states, wearing your Obama T-shirt or your McCain hat to the voting booth could get you a ticket home to change your clothes. One of such states against campaign clothing is Virginia. Other states, such as Pennsylvania, do not care and encourage their inhabitants to wear whatever they want. Our own California is against wearing shirts that advertise a candidate, but they plan to offer jackets to cover them up and will not send you home to change.
Such laws banning campaign clothing do not officially violate the First Amendment's right to free speech, according to the Supreme Court ruling in 1992 that law creating a "campaign-free zone" at a polling place and for 100 feet around it does not violate the First Amendment right to free speech. Many people, however, do believe it is a violation, and complain.
But in the end, it's all up to the county that you live in, and how they enforce the rules.
Personally, I don't think it's a big deal that people wear their campaign clothes to voting booths, because people should know who they are voting for before they leave to vote, but if the clothes are to to be banned, I don't think it's a violation of 1st Amendment rights either.
Any other opinions on this?
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5 comments:
i believe that that does violate free speech. Also, is anyone really coming to the polling place as an undecided voter? I do not see peoples t-shirts as having great effects on election day.
I don't think that wearing campaign clothing at a polling place should be a problem. As long as the person doesn't disrupt other people while they are voting, then I think that it's fine.
As much as I love free speech, I actually think it's a good idea to keep people from wearing candidate apparel. For one thing, another voter who is fanatic for the opposition to whatever the person is wearing could cause problems and, to an even greater degree, fights. With all the problems that come up in the booths or machines on election day I doubt anybody would want more problems caused by people knocking the voting machines over in anger.
I think that wearing campaign clothing is ok as long as it doesn't cause problems. So i think that the jackets are a good idea if a problem were to arise.
If some people are somewhat lenient on who they pick, and do not have a certain candidate at the right moment, any little gimmick can change those voters minds. I can see where the ban is reasonable, but it is also not fair to the voters. The ban would have to be based on the standpoint of the state and officials. It can go either way with reasonable argument for both sides.
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