Putting your vote on social media

vg88

I have a lot of friends putting their vote on their snapchat and Instagram stories that last only for 24 hours and encouraging others to do so aswell.

I was thinking to myself isn't it illegal to show your vote or is it an unenforceable rule today?

Peregrinus

The ideal the rule is to try to make it more difficult for me to get away with saying to you "Vote for X, and take a photograph of your completed ballot paper to prove you have done so, or I will beat you up/let the air out of your bicycle tyres/kidnap your children and dismember them with a blunt hacksaw". For the same reason there's a rule against the voter marking his ballot paper in a way that makes it distinctive/identifiable - if you do that your vote is likely to be discarded as spoilt, even if your voting preference is clear.

Electoral Act 1928 s. 28(3) makes it an offence to induce a voter to display his marked ballot paper, though I can't find that a voter who does so commits an offence himself. I believe, but I can't put my finger on the relevant provision, that it's an offence to use a camera at a polling place; if so, this would include a phone camera, obviously. Presiding officers do have a general duty to maintain the secrecy of the ballot, plus fairly wide powers to regulate what goes on the polling station in order to ensure that the election is conducted according to the law.

Spook_ie

Are exit polls while the vote is still ongoing legal? If not what could be done to prevent social media from publishing them?

Victor

Spook_ie wrote: »

Are exit polls while the vote is still ongoing legal? If not what could be done to prevent social media from publishing them?

Exit polls were off by up to 5% - it's easy to lie to or mislead a surveyor. Much more difficult to lie to the guy paying you to vote a particular way when he insists on a photo.

GerardKeating

moloner4 wrote: »

I have a lot of friends putting their vote on their snapchat and Instagram stories that last only for 24 hours and encouraging others to do so aswell.

I was thinking to myself isn't it illegal to show your vote or is it an unenforceable rule today?

Even if it was an offence, how to prove it, I could post on Twitter that I voted a certain way, but perhaps I voted the other way, unless I posted a picture of the ballot paper, which might be a seperate/different offfence.

Spook_ie

Victor wrote: »

Exit polls were off by up to 5% - it's easy to lie to or mislead a surveyor. Much more difficult to lie to the guy paying you to vote a particular way when he insists on a photo.

Yeah I know that, but usually exit polls aren't published/shown until the polls are over, maybe it's just the UK but I always thought there was a legal reason not to show them ahead of polls closing in case it influenced those yet to vote.

Riskymove

moloner4 wrote: »

I have a lot of friends putting their vote on their snapchat and Instagram stories that last only for 24 hours and encouraging others to do so aswell.

I was thinking to myself isn't it illegal to show your vote or is it an unenforceable rule today?

IMO it is no different than declaring publically how you voted just like many people, including politicans did

IMO the issue would only really be investigated where you were to post someone elses vote or otherwise try and publicise how another person voted without their permission.

Peregrinus

Riskymove wrote: »

IMO it is no different than declaring publically how you voted just like many people, including politicans did

IMO the issue would only really be investigated where you were to post someone elses vote or otherwise try and publicise how another person voted without their permission.

No, there is a difference. Violating the secrecy of the ballot puts you in a position to be pressurised or threatened. You may say that you are posting a picture of your ballot because you are proud of having voting for Councillor McGob****e, but how do I know that this is really what is going on? Plus you're helping to create a climate in which dispensing with the secrecy of the ballot is normalised. In the long run, this is not a good thing.

People shouldn't be able to verify how you voted. This is important.

Riskymove

Peregrinus wrote: »

No, there is a difference. Violating the secrecy of the ballot puts you in a position to be pressurised or threatened.

if you look at the recent campaigns I think that can happen simply by declaring your preference/position without actually showing a ballot

If people are choosing to out a picture of the ballot up, it is their choice to do so - of course they should understand consequences but I'd be surprised to see any action taken against an individual

have there been any cases of action taken?

seamus

Riskymove wrote: »

if you look at the recent campaigns I think that can happen simply by declaring your preference/position without actually showing a ballot

Well that's different because you're not violating the secrecy of the ballot.

I can declare until the cows come home that I am voting one way, but in the booth it's between me and the paper what I put down. Once the ballot is in the box, it cannot be verified that I voted the way I said I did.

If I take a photo of my ballot, then that's a much stronger verification of how I voted.
If it becomes a "thing" then you have the potential for vote-buying; "Comment on this status with a picture of your Yes vote and be in the draw to win a new pair of shoes".

Peregrinus

Seamus has it. There is a huge difference between claiming to have voted one way or the other, and violating the secrecy of the ballot in order to prove that you did.

If you violate the secrecy of the ballot by actually marking your ballot paper in a way that might make it identifiable, you are effectively disenfranchised - your vote is not counted. Why would we adopt that rule, and then take the view that violating the secrecy of the ballot in another way, and much more obviously and profoundly, is just fine and dandy? It isn't.

Riskymove asks if any action has actually been taken against people who do this? Not that I am aware of, is the answer. But it's a relatively recent phenomenon.