A User's Guide to Democracy by Nick Capodice & Hannah McCarthy

Author:Nick Capodice & Hannah McCarthy
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Celadon Books
Published: 2020-09-07T23:00:00+00:00

WHY WE DO IT THIS WAY

On October 24, 2016, Justin Timberlake posted a selfie to Instagram. The following day, the Internet was speculating wildly as to whether or not the man had broken the law.

For what crime, you may ask—being too good-looking? Having eyes that are just too darn blue? Having a voice that is too much like an angel’s?

It wasn’t the who of the selfie, dear reader, but the where. Timberlake took the picture from a polling place in Memphis, Tennessee, with his ballot visible just behind that chiseled mug. He was there to cast an early vote for the 2016 election and the now-deleted selfie was intended to encourage voter turnout. It was certainly not intended to break the law. But break the law it probably did.

Tennessee is one of many states that prohibit the taking of photos or videos inside of a polling place.7 Some states go so far as to explicitly prohibit the “ballot selfie.” Considering the general aura of voting in America—protected, secret, susceptible to corruption—perhaps this strikes you as perfectly reasonable. We do not share our vote in America. For all the public pomp and noise of campaigning, the vote itself is a private act. It’s a secret, them’s the rules.

But them’s haven’t always been the rules.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.