Michigan voters should be free to take “ballot selfies” for the first time on Nov. 8, a federal judge ruled Monday, suspending a ban the state is fighting to reinstate with little more than two weeks to go until the presidential election.
U.S. District Court Judge Janet Neff wrote in her decision – the ballot selfie ban will likely be found an unconstitutional restriction on free speech when a lawsuit against the state moves forward. She issued a preliminary injunction.
In her ruling, Neff prohibited the state from enforcing state laws and rules that prevent voters from taking a photograph of their own ballot and displaying the image outside of a polling place, including social media sites such as Facebook or Twitter.
The injunction is “a really great victory for free speech,” said attorney Steve Klein of the Pillar of Law Institute in Washington D.C., who is representing plaintiff Joel Crookston in the case and went to school with him at Hillsdale College.
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