Can you take a selfie with your voting ballot? What’s legal in California

The “I Voted” sticker has become a badge of honor in California, but it’s not the only form of election day virtue signaling.

Coming in a close second is taking a selfie with your ballot and posting it on social media for likes and shares.

But is it legal to photograph your filled-out ballot in California?

The short answer is yes. California is one of 23 states that allow such photographs; the 27 other states either don’t allow it or have unclear laws.

But for decades, the state did not allow voters to photograph their ballots. The tide turned in 2016, when Gov. Jerry Brown signed Assembly Bill 1494 into law, legalizing ballot selfies as of Jan. 1, 2017.

The change almost came even before the law took effect.

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The American Civil Liberties Union wasn’t willing to wait until 2017, especially during an election year. It argued that photographing and sharing one’s ballot “is political speech protected by the First Amendment.”

The organization sued then-Secretary of State Alex Padilla four days before the 2016 election, demanding that Padilla not enforce state election codes that barred voters from taking and distributing images of their marked ballots.

Padilla supported the passage of AB 1494 and said he was “sympathetic to efforts to accelerate the use of this new form of political expression,” observing that “across the country, ‘ballot selfies’ posted on social media have become a new form of political expression used to showcase one’s civic pride and participation.” But he also noted that the law prohibited it and “only a court of law can authorize such a change.”

A federal judge in San Francisco rejected the last-minute legal challenge posed by the ACLU “for it’s lateness and serious potential to cause confusion at polling places,” The Sacramento Bee reported.

Regardless, AB 1494 is the law of the land, so feel free to take as many selfies as you please — with this caveat. Current California Secretary of State Shirley Weber said in a statement: “Elections officials and poll workers will still need to exercise their discretion as to whether ‘ballot selfies’ cause disruptions requiring a response.”

And bear in mind as you snap away that there are things that state law forbids you to do with your vote, Weber said, including:

• Using information about how you voted for an illegal purpose;
• Soliciting or receiving consideration for voting, or refraining from voting, for any particular candidate or measure;
• Interfering with the conduct of elections and with the duties of election workers;
• Intimidating voters;
• Compromising the privacy of other voters casting a ballot.