Be careful where you ‘video your vote’ on Tuesday

Having Election Day jitters? Problems with touch-screen voting have already been reported in West Virginia, Tennessee, Missouri, and Texas. And a video (after the jump) of an election official in West Virginia demonstrating a machine that just so happens to be seriously malfunctioning and flipping votes while he’s trying to showcase its validity is circling the web today. Now voters want to take action by documenting their own experiences at the voter booth, and a joint project with PBS and YouTube called “Video Your Vote” is starting to gain serious attention.

But can you film at the polls here in Minnesota? Sort of.

Minnesota Statutes may prohibit you from using a cell phone camera or other recording device within the polling place itself, even if your purpose is just to document your own voting experience, according to the Citizen Media Law Project. According to a statement from the Minnesota Secretary of State’s Office:

While there is no state or federal law that strictly prohibits the use of cameras or other video equipment in the polling place to record an individual’s own voting experience, the Office of the Minnesota Secretary of State strongly discourages voters from using cameras or video recorders in the polling place for the following reasons:

Voters have a right to privacy-both as to how an individual has voted as well as whether or not an individual has voted. Either or both of these could be compromised by pictures or video. In addition, other voters’ objections to being photographed could lead to disruptions within the polling place.

We are expecting record turnout this year, which means that there may be lines and polling places may be crowded. Voters have a right to take the time they need to vote, but should not take extra time to take pictures.

And if you are interviewing and filming voters, Minnesota law requires you remain 100 feet from the entrance. What’s more, a Minnesota statute prohibits voters from showing their marked ballot to others. Photographing or videoing a marked ballot “could” violate this law, Citizen Media Law Project notes.

Of course, this will be the first year that web site like YouTube and Twitter will play such an important role in determining voter fraud issues and quickly disseminating information about voter experiences. And given the privacy of voting and the confusing laws regarding camera use, we’re also betting the cameras themselves will become an issue at polling places as election officials order them turned off or removed based on state laws that vary across the country. But behind that little curtain, no one can stop you from filming video of your own experience and issues like the ones shown in the video below. We’ve contacted the SoS office for more information regarding videoing your vote and will update when we get the details.