Skip to content

Wednesday, Sep. 16, 2020

Does wearing campaign paraphernalia when you go to vote break ‘electioneering’ laws in some states?

William Boger, Gigafact
yes

Electioneering offenses involve various polling-day persuasion attempts, and in ten states they include wearing campaign-related apparel.

In a 2018 case, the Supreme Court held that Minnesota's provisions were too vague, violating First Amendment rights to free speech. The case arose from a 2010 dispute between a poll official and a voter wearing a Tea Party "Don't Tread on Me" T-shirt and a button supporting voter ID. The court cited other states with more specific bans on names of candidates or messages about ballot measures as better legal models.

The laws usually prohibit unacceptable T-shirts or other activities within a specific distance of a polling place, typically 50 to 200 feet. Other offenses may include political discussions by election officers; verbal expression by anyone; petitioning for political causes, and handing out or posting politically relevant materials.

This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.

Sources

About fact briefs

Fact briefs are bite-sized, well-sourced explanations that offer clear "yes" or "no" answers to questions, confusions, and unsupported claims circulating online. They rely on publicly available data and documents, often from the original source. Fact briefs are written and published by Gigafact contributor publications.

See all fact briefs

Between 2020 and 2022, under close editorial supervision, Gigafact contracted a group of freelance writers and editors to test the concepts for fact briefs and provide inputs to our software development process. We call this effort Gigafact Foundry. Over the course of these two years, Gigafact Foundry writers published over 1500 fact briefs in response to claims they found online. Their important work forms the basis of Gigafact formats and editorial guidelines, and is available to the public on Gigafact.org. Readers should be aware that while there is still a lot of relevant information to be found, not all fact briefs produced by Gigafact Foundry reflect Gigafact's current methods and standards for fact briefs. If you come across any that you feel are out of date and need to be looked at with fresh eyes, don't hesitate to contact us at support@gigafact.org.

Learn More

Latest Fact Briefs

Be a Friend of facts

Help us fund more great fact briefs like this one.