Why You Should Take a Selfie with Your Ballot, Even Though It’s Illegal

When you walk into your polling location today, there will be a sign informing you that you are not allowed to take a picture inside the voting booth.

That sign is bullshit and you should selfie away just to spite it.

Boring legal background: Elections Canada, which runs the show, is governed by the Elections Canada Act. Section 163 of that act maintains that "the vote is secret," then section 164 adds that voters shouldn't yell out who they voted for, or show anyone their ballot. These rules stem from an archaic effort to stamp-out vote-buying in the days of yore when a bottle of whiskey was handed-off in exchange for a vote, and where the vote-buyer would want to take a look at the bribed voter's ballot to ensure they followed through. Secondarily, the ban is supposed to stop someone from pressuring others in the polling location to vote a specific way.

Elections Canada maintains that language in the act forbids photo-taking, even though the law was obviously written before camera-phones were a thing.

"If people were allowed to show how they voted, it could lead to coercion (being forced to vote a certain way) or vote buying," the Elections Canada website reads.

This, despite the fact that there hasn't (to the best of my knowledge) been a straight-up money-for-votes case in decades. Enticing someone's vote through bribes or threats is, obviously, illegal. To think that the only thing stopping dastardly ne'er-do-wells from rigging an entire election is their inability to confirm how their rubes actually voted is… wrong.

Basically, maintaining a ban on taking a picture of your ballot to stop vote-buying is kind of like banning gun holsters to stop gun duels—a great idea, in 1864.

And this isn't just one of those anachronistic laws on the books that nobody is going to bother with. If you take a picture of your ballot, Elections Canada is going to try and fuck you up.

In 2013, blogger and pundit Parker Donham tweeted a photo of his ballot when he went to the polls in the Nova Scotia general election. Elections Nova Scotia (which is separate from Elections Canada, but maintains the same rule) sicced the RCMP on him, and threatened the Cape Bretoner with a $5,000 fine. He's asked the province to repeal that part of the law.

And like a goddamn maniac, Donham did it again.

.@ElectionsCan_E I just voted. Here's how: pic.twitter.com/KLaMlX0pnP
— Parker Donham (@kempthead) October 19, 2015

Obviously, tweeting a photo of your ballot can be considered an act of free expression, and therefore protected by the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The government is allow to restrict that freedom if there is a clear and necessary purpose to the law. Here, there obviously isn't.

This nonsense is unconstitutional. So go out there and break the law, Canadians.

(Full disclosure: I voted at an empty advance poll and the kindly election workers who were loitering over me gave me cold feet on my own ballot snapshot.)

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