Editing 2066: Ballot Selfies

Without proof of how a vote was cast, if someone bribed (or even violently coerced) a voter to vote for candidate A, the voter could just vote 'B' and the coercer would be unable to tell whether they voted as instructed.  This is at the heart of the concept of "a secret ballot".  But if ballot-selfies or other proof-of-vote mechanisms are permitted then the evil-doer can demand verification that the voter did what they were coerced to do — and this jeopardizes the idea of a truly free and fair election.

However, the "secret ballot" principle is not universally valued nor enforced. Some voting machines produce a paper receipt showing the choices the voter made — and many jurisdictions permit use of a postal ballot — so there are plenty of other ways to circumvent the law in those places.  So the ban on ballot selfies is harder to justify unless those other lines of coercion are also ruled out.

On the other hand, the desire to take and distribute ballot selfies often comes from an excitement in participating in the voting process and the desire to share that excitement in the hopes of encouraging others to vote, and anything that helps get more people to the polls is generally considered to be a good thing. In addition, the law is incredibly difficult to enforce — there is little way to prevent somebody from photographing their ballot and privately showing this photo to somebody else — and the practice of enforcing it (i.e. searching for possible photographic devices all together) would make the local government incredibly unpopular.  Lastly, voters storing evidence of their votes could be useful to prevent voting fraud performed by the state.

This dual threat/benefit has led some states to explicitly legalize ballot selfies, other states to specifically disallow them and even levy steep financial penalties, while the rest are [https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2016/10/25/13389980/ballot-selfie-legal-illegal still debating or ignoring the issue].

As [[Ponytail]] is aware of this law, she believes she has identified a solution wherein she will make an {{w|oil painting}} of her voting rather than taking a {{w|photograph}}.  A painting being more of an artistic endeavor that doesn't have to faithfully record all aspects of the image, it may well be valid both on grounds of {{w|freedom of speech}} as well as not being a verbatim record of her vote - thereby preserving the secrecy of the ballot.  Of course, making a painting of her vote may lead to additional problems. If she intends to paint the portrait herself, of herself (i.e. a {{w|self-portrait}}) casting her vote, it would be very difficult and time consuming to attempt to do that, especially without a mirror, which she apparently doesn't have with her and which is generally not standard issue in voting booths.{{Citation needed}} She could also try to recruit someone else to do the painting, not knowing the level of their artistic talent, however, usually only the person casting the vote is allowed in the booth, and they are expected to close the curtain or otherwise ensure no outside person, like the painter, can view the vote casting act. It would also require her to stay in the booth longer than most voters.

The comic might also be a reference to the existing {{w|Courtroom photography and broadcasting#United_States|ban of cameras in US courtrooms}}, which led US newspapers to widely adopt cartoons as a replacement.