Freedom of Speech

(Self-Drawn Image of People Speaking Freely)

It is Unconstitutional for the Congress, or

any part of the American Government, to
Suppress a Person’s Verbal or Symbolic
Speech
When a T-shirt Gets You in Trouble at the Voting Booth
By Adam Liptak

WASHINGTON — Minnesota has a dress code for voting. The idea, the state says, is to create a
safe space for democracy.

To make sure voters are in a properly contemplative mood at their polling places on Election
Day, the state bans T-shirts, hats and buttons that express even general political views, like
support for gun rights or labor unions. The goal, state officials have said, is “an orderly and
controlled environment without confusion, interference or distraction.”

Critics say the law violates the principle at the core of the First Amendment: that the government
may not censor speech about politics. They add that voters can be trusted to vote sensibly even
after glancing at a political message.

“A T-shirt will not destroy democracy,” a group challenging the law told the Supreme Court this
month.

The court will hear arguments in the case, Minnesota Voters Alliance v. Mansky, No. 16-1435,
next month.

By the time the term ends in June, the justices will decide whether people can be forced to
choose between their right to express themselves and their right to vote.

The case started when members of the Minnesota Voters Alliance, which says it works to ensure
“election integrity,” turned up at Minnesota polling places wearing T-shirts bearing Tea Party
logos and buttons saying “Please I.D. Me.”

They were told to cover the messages and were allowed to vote even if they refused. But they
risked prosecution for disobeying polls workers’ orders.

The group and two individuals challenged the law on free speech grounds, and they lost in the
lower courts. A trial judge said the “Please I.D. Me” buttons were particularly problematic
because they were “part of an orchestrated effort to falsely intimate to voters in line at the polls
that photo identification is required in order to vote in Minnesota.”

The United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, in St. Louis, upheld the law.

“Even if Tea Party apparel is not election-related, it is not unreasonable to prohibit it in a polling
place,” Judge Duane Benton wrote. “In order to ensure a neutral, influence-free polling place, all
political material is banned.”

The Supreme Court case is not centered on the particular items the challengers wanted to wear. It
is instead a general challenge to the law, saying it is overbroad and vague even if the particular
items could constitutionally be barred.
The Minnesota law is certainly written in broad terms. “A political badge, political button or
other political insignia may not be worn at or about a polling place on primary or election day,”
its key provision says.

State officials have interpreted the law to bar not only campaign buttons and the like but also any
apparel that takes a position on a contested political issue or promotes “a group with
recognizable political views (such as the Tea Party, MoveOn.org and so on).”

When the case was argued in the Eighth Circuit, the state’s lawyer said the law could apply to T-
shirts bearing the logos of the Chamber of Commerce or a labor union.

In dissent, Judge Bobby E. Shepherd wondered why “the presence of a passive and peaceful
voter” wearing a T-shirt would disrupt polling places. Among the T-shirts banned by the law,
Judge Shepherd said, were ones promoting the American Legion, Veterans of Foreign Wars, the
National Rifle Association, the A.F.L.-C.I.O. and the N.A.A.C.P.

The state has an important precedent on its side.

In a 1992 decision, Burson v. Freeman, the Supreme Court upheld a Tennessee law that created a
100-foot buffer zone around polling places. But that law was aimed at traditional campaign signs
and posters, not apparel bearing more general messages.

The Supreme Court upheld the Tennessee law. Justice Harry A. Blackmun, writing for a four-
member plurality, said it was needed to combat “voter intimidation and election fraud.”

Laws like the one in Tennessee are fairly easy to enforce. The Minnesota law, and similar ones
in at least nine other states, require difficult on-the-spot judgments about what apparel qualifies
as political. Those decisions, moreover, are often made by temporary poll workers rather than
seasoned government officials.

Such workers can make odd calls. In 2012, a young woman wearing an M.I.T. sweatshirt was
stopped by a confused Denver poll worker who thought she was electioneering on behalf of Mitt
Romney, a presidential candidate.

A supervisor intervened, explaining that the initials on the shirt stood for the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology.

“There was only one ‘T,’ so the voter was not electioneering,” Alton Dillard, a spokesman for
the Denver Clerk and Recorder’s Office, explained.

Another poll worker tried to stop a Houston woman from voting in the 2008 election because she
was wearing an Alaska T-shirt. Sarah Palin, then the state’s governor, was running for vice
president.

Again, cooler heads prevailed.

Similar problems have arisen in the Supreme Court’s backyard. A few years ago, I saw a court
police officer order a man wearing a “Guns Save Lives” button on the Supreme Court plaza to
remove it.

“No political logos on the plaza,” an officer said.

I asked the officer for his reasoning. “You can’t interview people on the plaza,” he responded.

He was part of a long tradition. A Supreme Court police officer once threatened a woman with
arrest for displaying a sign bearing the verbatim text of the First Amendment.

Whether at a polling place or on the Supreme Court plaza, decorum is a worthy goal. But so is
the robust debate protected by the First Amendment.
Paraphrase of Adam Liptak’s “When a T-shirt Gets You in Trouble at the Voting Booth.”

In Minnesota, a controversial law, in use throughout the past few elections, bans clothing bearing
political messages from voting sites. This ban includes not only political candidate slogans, but also
slogans related to organizations like labor unions, and current political issues, such as gun control. While
people who still wear them are not kept from the voting, it is possible they might get in legal trouble for
violating the rules of the polls. When the Minnesota Voters’ Alliance Group, a group working to keep
elections honest and fair, wore buttons to the polls stating, “Please I.D. Me”, they were accused of
breaking this law, and, in response, they and a few other citizens brought the law to court, saying it went
against their freedoms of speech. While they lost in their more local court systems, they gained some
ground with the Supreme Court, which did not issue a complete ruling, but disagreed with the way the
law had been written. Along with the arguments over whether this rule is correct, people also differ in
their opinions of the way this law should be enforced; a voter was chastised for wearing an “M.I.T.”
shirt slogan, which the poll worker thought stood for “Mitt Romney”. The case, Minnesota Voter
Alliance v. Mansky, will continue in February with the different sides explaining their opinions, and the
Supreme Court will continue to discuss this for the rest of the term.

State officials argued that the law was created because political messages on clothing could disrupt the
focus of other voters, as well as pressuring people into voting differently from the way they otherwise
would. Judge Duane Benton of the United States Court for Appeals of the Eighth Circuit said that even
if a message displayed was about a political idea, not a certain party, it could still cause unrest in the
booth. Also, clothing bearing political messages was compared to a form of political advertising, which
the Supreme Court agreed should be banned in voting booths when Tennessee held a case about it in
1992, to make sure everyone voted based on their own opinions, not out of peer pressure. And the
“Please I.D. Me” buttons were forbidden very strongly because, in the opinion of the trial judge, they
broadcasted the idea that voters needed to present a photo identification of themselves. However, those
opposed to this law expressed the opinion that the policy suppresses symbolic speech, which the Free
Speech provision of the First Amendment protects. It was also argued that the law banning political
advertising in voting booths was aimed at signs and banners truly meant to sway people’s opinions, not
politically-themed clothing. Meanwhile, Judge Shepard dissented against the law in general, saying that
clothing should not be enough to instigate havoc in a voting booth, and particularly not some of the
banned slogans, such as “N.A.A.C.P.” and “Veteran of Foreign Wars”. The Supreme Court’s opinion
was that the law simply must be more specific; what is and isn’t allowed is very unclear, making the law
difficult both to implement in practise and to decide a ruling on.

The article is a reflection of the First Amendment, specifically the Free Speech provision, because of its
focus on the symbolic speech of clothing bearing political slogans. The dispute is between the
government of Minnesota and the Minnesota Voters’ Alliance Group, and the main question is whether
or not forbidding someone to wear clothing bearing political messages to a voting site is a violation of
freedom of speech.