Invasion of Polling Place- April 7, 2009

I've been trying for slightly over two hours now to find the exact distance that political signs must be spaced from the entrance of a polling place on Election Day in Champaign County. I've found a list of polling places, including ones that prohibit political activity on their property while they are being used as polling places. I would estimate from the signs I saw around Snyder Hall that the magic number is about 100 feet from the entryways of a polling place.

I only saw one entity that blatantly ignored these restrictions. Stacks of political materials of a biased nature were distributed inside the very room that held the voting booths. Long after the polls had closed, I stopped by to investigate, and took a sampling of the propaganda as evidence. I could take three large steps from the stack of papers and then touch a voting booth with my foot. While this may not be a very technical measurement, I do believe that three of my strides do not reach 100 feet. Who was responsible for this irresponsible distribution of political material? The Daily Illini, of course.

The First Amendment says "Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press." The interpretation of this has varied depending on the situation, the era, and the judge, but generally it is believed that our Democracy depends on free and uninhibited speech so that people can have the best possible chance of forming opinions and acting upon them in the electoral process. Which then is more important, the rights of the voter, or the rights of the speaker? If the freedom of "speak as you will" and the freedom of "vote without harassment" come into conflict with each other, should we say that voting is not as important as discussion of how one ought to have voted?

Writing a blog between the hours of 8 pm and 9 am has been hazardous to my academic performance. I find that sometimes I am in such a hurry to let my thoughts flow out through my fingertips that sometimes they splash around a bit and what had been a crystal-clear yet fluid stream of thought becomes muddy and turbulent. Further complicating the issue tonight may be the contempt I have held for the Daily Illini since the day I read the article with a picture captioned along the lines of "Catholics Worship Painting of Pope." Perhaps I am over-eager to find fault with an entity that has villainized middle-aged balding white men in seats of wealth and power. As an engineering student, I hope someday to become a middle-aged man in a seat of wealth and power, and I may well be balding and white at the time. Judge for yourselves then what you feel is right, as I trust the cases I will present you with may yield more persuasive power than the announcement of my ire.

In the case of Mills v. Alabama (1), the United States Supreme Court reversed the conviction of a newspaper editor that had been convicted of the crime of publishing an editorial on Election Day that urged people to vote a certain way. Alabama law at the time read:


Section 285 of the Alabama Corrupt Practices Act, Ala. Code Tit.17 §§ 268-286 (1940), provides that: It is a corrupt practice for any person on any election day to intimidate or attempt to intimidate an elector or any of the election officers; or, obstruct or hinder or attempt to obstruct or hinder, or prevent or attempt to prevent the forming of the lines of the voters awaiting their opportunity or time to enter the election booths; or to hire or to let for hire any automobile or other conveyance for the purpose of conveying electors to and from the polls; or, to do any electioneering or to solicit any votes or to promise to cast any votes for or against the election or nomination of any candidate, or in support of or in opposition to any proposition that is being voted on the day on which the election affecting such candidates or propositions is being held.


Laws against political speech on Election Day were generally meant to be for the good of the voters, and were thought to be neutral to all sides participating in elections. However, they are still laws prohibiting speech based on content, and thus can only be allowed in very a very narrow context. The Supreme Court struck down the law as "an obvious and flagrant abridgment of the constitutionally guaranteed freedom of the press because it provided criminal penalties for publishing editorials which silenced the press at a time when it could be most effective." (1)

A lot of scenarios have occurred which fouled up U.S. elections. Intimidation of voters, voter fraud, fraud by officials, drunken and disorderly voters, invasions of voter privacy, voter confusion, unfair treatment of voters (biased literacy tests), discrimination against minorities, buying votes, loud noises, ballot shortages, even catastrophic automobile accidents and violence against voters have interfered with elections. However, many Americans feel that we can improve upon our past, and honestly believe that, no matter how cynically we may view the people actually in power, our modern elections are fair and peaceful, and the voting of each citizen is a sacred act. We do not wish to be bullied into voting (2) or not voting. We view tainted elections with contempt.

The case for political speech around the ballot boxes has already been fought and lost, but it was a tough fight. In Burson v. Freeman (3), a regulation restricting campaigning with 100 feet of the entrance to a voting location was challenged as a violation to the First Amendment. The U.S. Supreme court was split in their decision. It is clear that the purpose of free and uninhibited speech is to affect political change, and that speech was clearly at its most effective at a location where voting is actually taking place. However, the fundamental right to cast a ballot free from fraud won out, and the law was upheld. Concern was expressed that the law not be expanded to reach too far, else speech become restricted needlessly. Even with this ruling, free speech must only be restricted on very narrow conditions.

If legal, a polling place is a wonderful place to spread your message. I particularly remember the long line of voters during the November 2008 election that wound back and forth through my residence hall. Nobody wanted to give up their spot in line, and after the official time for voting ended, but everyone knew that they would be allowed to vote as long as they were already in line, there was no way anyone was going to walk away when they were so close to participating in a historic event. And that is why, for all practical purposes, everyone in line was a captive audience. If someone were to come and start spreading campaign messages, they would be forcibly removed from the premises. Yet, we were bored standing there in line.

Yesterday, the Daily Illini was able to take advantage of the wait to vote. They had set up their newspaper right in the same room as the voting machines. Whether you picked up the newspaper or not, the headline was bold and plainly visible.

"UI alumnus challenges incumbent for assessor"

The largest photo on the front page was the candidate the Daily Illini editors were (not officially) supporting for assessor, nine times the size of the photos of the other candidates. Another newspaper, the Morning News-Gazette was also available for free, but after scanning the pages for more material I discovered that the only mention of politics was information about where to vote and when polls closed, not specific information about candidates on the front page.

The main article complains that it has been 20 years since Champaign voters have had any choice other than Brian Christie, and that there has been a trend in which properties were being "inaccurately valued," according to their secondhand source through the News-Gazette, Debby Auble. The Daily Illini happily prints that "the high-end homes in the community were really grossly under-assessed." They also point out how modest and middle-income homes are being "grossly over-assessed" according to one person's opinion. The Daily Illini does not say, but the people whose words appeared on the front page said, that the incumbent has been really passive and that there are statistics that show the bias (magic words! Yes! Everyone is opposed to bias!!) in the system. The Daily Illini then goes on to say students should remember that they are affected by the situation, because the incumbent's unfair evaluation of property leads to higher taxes for their landlords and thus higher rent for them. When the Daily Illini tried to get their source to say that the brave young graduate of the University was fighting an "uphill battle," their source acknowledged it. She also calls the News-Gazette's support of the incumbent "very odd." There is little defense of the opposing viewpoint because "Christie could not be reached for comment." I am sorry to say that a great deal of my fellow students would consider themselves informed after reading this horsewash. I am also amazed that a candidate running for re-election would be unavailable to a student newspaper unless they were not given adequate time to respond. When the journalist finished speaking to people unsatisfied with the incumbent, did he then try to call the assessor's office after business hours, listen to the answering machine, and then hang up? How many days did the reporter attempt to contact Christie?

The Daily Illini has a right to post slanted stories that leave students with a false sense of being informed. However, when they use a story supporting a particular candidate as their main headline, they are essentially a campaign flyer that has snuck inside neutral territory.

Within the folds of the paper, on the "opinions" page, were a set of opinions that never disagreed with each other. Jordan Harp spoke out against the tax sales increase, yet no opinions were printed supporting the increase. Harp suggested that students were not affected by property taxes because they did not own property, but that they were going to be badly hurt when those in power (anti-incumbent) snuck the sales tax hike in while students weren't paying attention. The main article was anti-incumbent because property taxes were unfairly high to the common person, and the editorial was anti-incumbent because property taxes should be raised instead of sales taxes. Whether you are for or against raising property taxes, the Daily Illini will fault you because you're an old foggy.

Unfortunately, the Daily Illini does not seem to have a link to this final bit of published opinion, but in the Letters to the Editor section, a snippet entitled "Vote Rex Bradfield mayor for Urbana" had no countering letter supporting any other candidate, and again spoke out against the proposed sales tax increase.

All of these things may seem trivial, but a polling place is a special location, and should be set aside from biased interference of the outside media. This newspaper was political in nature, supported specific candidates, and was set up in a rack that people may have had to stand next to for several minutes while they waited for their turn to vote. It is now almost 4 am and I have decided not to thoroughly explain the psychological theories of the primacy effect or the recency effect, but I assert that the very presence of this material can affect the outcome of the election and is inappropriate. At the very least, the percentage of ambivalent or careless voters who would have chosen randomly (or not at all) on topics they new little about will have the shady words of the Daily Illini editors, who managed to get in the last word, despite county ordinances.

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1) MILLS v. ALABAMA
No. 597
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
2)Vicente Cevallos FRAUSTO, Plaintiff, v. Herbert BROWNELL, Attorney General of the United States, Defendant
No. 18245
UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA, CENTRAL DIVISION
3) CHARLES W. BURSON, ATTORNEY GENERAL AND REPORTER FOR TENNESSEE, PETITIONER v. MARY REBECCA FREEMAN
No. 90-1056
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES