By James Kelly, The Clock/Granite State News Collaborative
Voters with new Rambo MAGA flags or “Midwest Princess” Harris-Walz camo hats may be excited to showcase their gear on Election Day, but they should be careful: Displaying much political merchandise is restricted at the polls.
Rules around clothing at the polls fall under a broader set of electioneering laws in New Hampshire. According to those laws, clothing that is easily removed and explicitly advocates for a candidate, party, or ballot measure is prohibited at the polls.
“There is a general prohibition against wearing campaign-related clothing in a polling place,” New Hampshire Secretary of State David Scanan told the Granite State News Collaborative. “And that is defined further in the statute by meaning promoting or opposing a candidate in the election in which voters are participating.” Donald Trump branded-clothing would therefore be prohibited, Scanlan said, but Mitt Romney merch would be perfectly fine.
New Hampshire’s political clothing ban has been in place since 2016, but has since been changed. In its original form, the law banned all political merch. In 2020, the law was amended to allow merchandise that is not easily removed. Hats, stickers, and pins are still banned because they are easily removed. Shirts and pants, however, have more leeway.
“If a voter is wearing an article of clothing that is not easily removed, or if removed would expose too much,” Scanlan said, “then the moderator is instructed by the statute to let that person vote wearing those articles of clothing.” Still, the voter in that situation must move expeditiously through the polling place and may not linger to talk to other voters, he said.
Electioneering laws exist to curb the sort of voter intimidation that was prominent before reform in the 1890s, when the switch was made to an official secret ballot. Before then, voting was an entirely public affair, and that ushered in rules on electioneering. Before regulation, electioneers would pressure voters into voting a certain way. “Liquor was probably the most common item that was distributed to get a person to vote a certain way,” Scanlan said. “But there was also pressure. There was vote- buying.”
Voting reforms aimed to create a voting process without those kinds of pressures – New Hampshire law now bans giving alcohol to voters “with a view to influencing any election” – but other forms of electioneering are allowed within designated electioneering zones.
Moderators are instructed to create both a “preferred electioneering area” and “no-electioneering corridors.” The preferred electioneering area is a space near the entrance to a polling place where electioneers are encouraged to gather. No-electioneering corridors are spaces at least 10 feet wide that allow access to the polls from parking lots and sidewalks that serve the polling place. Electioneering is technically allowed anywhere outside the no-electioneering corridors
A 2014 state law also banned sharing images of your completed ballot – or “ballot selfies” –, but that law was ruled unconstitutional in 2016 by the U.S. First Circuit Court of Appeals. The court ruled that ballot selfies are a kind of political speech protected by the First Amendment, but proponents of the ban argued that they are a means for voter intimidation.
“The court opened up an opportunity for intimidation and pressure and possibly vote-buying,” Scanlan said of the First Circuit’s decision, suggesting that people could use those photographs as a way to force others to vote a certain way. “You could easily envision a college fraternity or sorority saying, ‘This is the person that we would like to see get elected into office. Let’s all go cast our votes and then we’ll post our ballot selfies when we’re done,’” he said. “At that point, there is political pressure … to vote a certain way.”
Still, opponents of the ban see restrictions as a sort of overreaching solution in search of a problem
“The ban’s rationale strikes me as paternalistic and anti-democratic,” former ACLU president Nadine Strossen told Granite State News Collaborative.
The First Circuit shared her view. “New Hampshire may not impose such a broad restriction on speech banning ballot selfies in order to combat an unsubstantiated and hypothetical danger,” it held.
The Know Your Vote, youth voter guide project was designed, reported and produced by student and young professional journalists from The Clock,The Concord Monitor, The Equinox, Granite State News Collaborative, Keene State College, The Laconia Daily Sun, The Monadnock Ledger-Transcript, Nashua Ink Link and The Presidency and the Press program at Franklin Pierce University. See the full guide at www.collaborativenh.org/know-your-vote.