Election ’08: Unbuttoned

BY Jake Parsley
PUBLISHED: 10/22/2008

Election Day is less than two weeks away, and as the self-appointed legal greenhorn of The Minnesota Daily, I’ve taken it upon myself to review some of the more crucial laws regarding proper behavior at your local Minnesota polling place on Nov. 4.

We’ll start with Minnesota statute 204C.06: No lingering near polling places. And you can’t tear down or mutilate any instruction posters. You also can’t take any ballots with you when you leave, lest you be charged with a gross misdemeanor. Consider yourself forewarned.

Oh, and you can’t bring booze into a polling place. Even if it’s 3.2, it’s still against the law. I know it’s going to be tough to pick a senator sober this year, but you gotta do it. It’s the law.

Now the really important stuff. Minnesota statute 211B.11 says it’s a petty misdemeanor to “display campaign material, post signs, ask, solicit, or in any manner try to induce or persuade a voter within a polling place or

within 100 feet of the building in which a polling place is situated.”

It gets better. “A political badge, political button, or other political insignia may not be worn at or about the polling place on primary or Election Day.”

How you like them apples? After enduring months of talking fish and schmucks in bowling alleys, you wear a button to the polling place and, BAM! You’re a criminal.

The Minnesota secretary of state’s website has a page entitled “Protecting Election Integrity,” where they break the statute down for us laypeople. It reads, “It is illegal to wear any clothing, buttons or other attire bearing candidate names or partisan references into a polling place.”

So obviously what this statute is saying is, when you go to the polls, leave your “Elated for Ellison” button or your “Bachman is Beautiful” t-shirt at home. But today’s kids are pretty intense about their politics. What if a guy writes OBAMA across his forehead with a paint marker or some girl tattoos the likenesses of McCain and Palin on her eyelids? Are they not allowed to vote because it would compromise electoral integrity?

And that vague prohibition against partisan references? What does that even mean? Can I paint my entire body red? Wear a blue sweater? Will this compromise election integrity? It’s hard to say.

And if you think these are laws that won’t get enforced, talk to Anna Brenna. Brenna was standing in a voting booth in Lakeville in 2004, when she felt a tug at her backpack.

“I assumed it was my husband looking for a pen,” Brenna said. “But it was a woman who was physically trying to remove my bag.”

It turns out Brenna had left a Kerry/Edwards and a Wellstone button on her backpack, and an erstwhile election judge was trying her darndest to rectify the situation.

“I thought there was something sacred about standing at an election booth,” said Brenna, who said she would have been happy to remove her buttons had she known about the law. “It was pretty rotten.”

Alan Maki had a similar experience when he tried to vote in 2004. Maki, the director of organizing for the Midwest Casino Workers and Organizing Council and a self-proclaimed communist, wore a button that read “Union Yes, War No.” An official threatened to call police when he refused to remove the button at his polling place in Warroad.

“I’m totally opposed to people who campaign at a polling place, and I wasn’t doing that,” Maki said. “I wear that button every day of my life.”

Maki said the attack was both a suppression of an unpopular idea and a personal attack against him.

“I didn’t want to get arrested, so I took it off,” Maki said. This year, Maki voted absentee and kept his button on.

It turns out Minnesota is one of 10 states that doesn’t allow campaign paraphernalia at polling places.

Kimberly J. Tucker, a 2006 graduate of American University Washington College of Law, was told she had to remove her “John Kerry for president” button in order to vote in 2004. When she refused, an official threatened to call the police.

Tucker’s experience motivated her to write an article about polling place restrictions that appeared in the fall 2006 issue of the “Thurgood Marshall Law Review.”

In her article, Tucker reviews the major incidents and court cases that have decided the constitutionality of such laws.

My favorite example: Dallas Cowboy fans were not allowed to wear football jerseys to the polls in 2004 when there was a stadium-finance issue on the ballot.

“The wearing of political message buttons provides a silent voice of personal conviction during one of the most important times for a democracy — the casting of votes,” Tucker said at the conclusion of her article. “There should be no political dress code for polling places.”

The Supreme Court has said that states like Minnesota can have restrictive laws pertaining to polling places because it’s important for states to protect voters from “from confusion and undue influence.”

Gee, thanks Supreme Court! I may not be the brightest fellow in the precinct come Nov. 4, but I kind of doubt I would be so befuddled by the presence of an opposing viewpoint in 2 inch letters that I would, in a complete fog of ignorance, vote for the wrong side. And I’m pretty bad with names.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m totally against voter intimidation. The last thing I want is some Barkley enthusiast looking over my shoulder whilst meaningfully wielding his Independence Party shillelagh on Election Day. But buttons? Are they worried about political bullies threatening to pinprick the opposition to death? Come on.

Anyway, it’s an exciting election. So go out and vote. But no lingering or boozing around the polling place, OK gang? And for goodness sake, leave those buttons at home.

Jake Parsley welcomes comments at jparsley@mndaily.com