Why Are There Laws That Restrict What People Can Wear to the Polls?
A new Supreme Court ruling changes the course of a century-long debate over speech and conduct when voting
By Kate Keller
June 15, 2018
When the state of Minnesota passed a law in 1912 that prohibited voters from wearing a “political badge, political button or other political insignia†inside a “polling place on primary or election day,†it represented one more step in a two-decade Progressive effort to reform elections. In the elections of the late 19th-century, voting had been a raucous affair where men would boisterously and publicly proclaim their political identity. But the burgeoning Progressive movement sought to make casting ballots a peaceful and orderly experience unfettered by electioneering.
Minnesota was not alone in passing such reforms. By 1912, the vast majority of states had adopted practices intended to civilize voting. Ballots were made secret and government-vetted, and campaigning was banned in close proximity to the polls. These reforms significantly shifted election-day culture but were largely noncontroversial. Occasionally, challenges to these laws arose – a debate over a Tennessee law that banned distributing campaign brochures or soliciting votes within 100 feet of polling places reached the Supreme Court in 1992. The Court upheld the law, though, on the grounds that speech could be limited when it threatened free voting.
Read more:
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/why-are-there-laws-restrict-what-people-can-wear-polls-180969381/#pUSEzxx98CJ96Xup.99
