What's happening
This bill allows New York voters to take and share photos of themselves and their own ballots while voting, with privacy safeguards.
Why it matters
Expands voter expression. By allowing voters to photograph and share images of themselves and their own ballots, the bill recognizes and protects an emerging form of political expression and personal documentation, which can be important for civic engagement and encouraging participation.
Clarifies privacy boundaries. The legislation carefully prohibits photos that capture other voters or the contents of their ballots, aiming to preserve the privacy and confidentiality of the voting process for everyone else at the polling place.
Reduces legal ambiguity. By amending existing election law, the bill explicitly makes clear that taking and sharing a "ballot selfie" is not a punishable offense, reducing the risk of confusion or inconsistent enforcement across polling locations.
Preserves election integrity safeguards. The bill maintains prohibitions on soliciting others to reveal their ballots and on marking ballots for identification (except for personal photos as allowed), ensuring that protections against voter coercion or vote-buying are not weakened.
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Who cares
Headline styles
Allow Ballot Selfies When Voting
Plain English, a few words. Used as the page title.
Sponsors
No co-sponsors yet.
History
- Enacting clause stricken
- Referred to election law
Full text
1 pageUnderlined is new[Struck] is removedOfficial text on nysenate.gov ↗
STATE OF NEW YORK
5512
2017-2018 Regular Sessions
IN ASSEMBLY
February 9, 2017
Introduced by M. of A. SEPULVEDA -- read once and referred to the Committee on Election Law
AN ACT to amend the election law, in relation to allowing photographs of one's self and one's own ballot while voting
The People of the State of New York, represented in Senate and Assembly, do enact as follows:
Section 1. Section 8-300 of the election law is amended by adding a new subdivision 4 to read as follows:
4. Voters shall be permitted to photograph and post on social media their own ballot and themselves at any stage of voting, including while in a privacy booth or at a ballot scanner, provided that such photographs do not contain any other voter or reveal the contents of any other voter's ballot.
§ 2. Subdivisions 10 and 11 of section 17-130 of the election law are amended to read as follows:
10. [Shows his] Solicits a voter to show their ballot after it is prepared for voting, to any person so as to reveal the contents[, or solicits a voter to show the same]; or,
11. Places any mark upon his ballot, or does any other act in connection with his ballot with the intent that it may be identified as the one voted by him, other than what is allowed pursuant to subdivision four of section 8-300 of this chapter; or,
§ 3. This act shall take effect immediately.
EXPLANATION--Matter in italics (underscored) is new; matter in brackets
[ ] is old law to be omitted.
LBD09232-01-7
Reflowed for reading: line numbers and page breaks removed. Cite the official text.
Summaries, headlines and scores are AI-generated from the official bill text. How we score bills. Source: NYS Open Legislation.