Use of partisan slogans: Contrasting decisions

Public Opinion reports that Franklin County, Ohio, “will require you to remove or cover” partisan slogans “if you wear them to the polls on Tuesday, despite the gauntlet of aggressive supporters and campaign workers you may face a mere 10 feet from the polling place.” According to this story, “that’s contrary to a September memo issued by the Pennsylvania Department of State advising counties to let voters in partisan attire cast ballots, so long as they take no additional action to influence others.”

Differently, KPCC in an interview with an L.A. County pollworker trainer, reports that “if (a voter) shows up wearing political paraphernalia”, L.A. County pollworkers “would ask them to remove the item while they are voting in the polling place.” But, “if a voter refuses to remove a political button”, pollworkers are instructed to “just let them vote and leave the polling place as quickly as possible.”

In relation to campaign workers keeping distance from polling places, the St. Petersburg Times wrote that as a result of early voting lines in Pinellas County (Florida) which “snaked well around the block “, “candidates took advantage of the captive audience, handing out brochures and chatting,” in spite of the fact that “State law bans campaigning within 100 feet of the polling place.”

Inés and Janell