Editorial: Don't wear your vote on your sleeve when at the polls today
by CT Editorial Board
Monday, November 3, 2008; 8:47 PM
This may sound like a belated Halloween warning but, when you vote today, be careful what you wear. When you vote in Virginia, it is illegal to wear any item of clothing that can be construed as a partisan endorsement of a particular candidate. Buttons, hats and T-shirts that support Obama, McCain, Democrats or Republicans (or anyone else for that matter) should not be worn to the polls. Scary, no?

This may remind you of earlier in the campaign when registering in Blacksburg was thought to cause the sky to fall. Hopefully that issue was resolved by demonstrating that, although the matter was needlessly confusing, your vote will be counted on Election Day without penalty. Don't be perplexed by this matter, however, and trust us when we say that you should not wear anything politically provocative to the polls. There's no good reason not to play it safe here.

The fact that such a law exists in Virginia (similar statutes exist in several other states, too) might lead you to believe that it's one of those bizarre vestigial laws that remain on the books but is never enforced. This is not the case here: The State Board of Electors as recently as two weeks ago voted to continue the prohibition against sartorial electioneering at Virginia's polling sites. It may be a bizarre law, but it is one you should assume will be enforced today.

The logic of the ban is clear enough: Polling places should be sacredly non-partisan spaces that permit the quiet exercising of the right to vote in secret without fear of intimidation. Of course, this conception of voting is relatively modern; until the late 19th century, voting in secret was considered cowardly and would result in poor decisions by voters who were not held to public account for their choices. The secret ballot was deemed a threat to our national character. Surely this seems even more bizarre than bans on "Obama is my homeboy" shirts -- scarier, too.

Prohibitions against partisan activity in the vicinity of a polling place are obviously sensible, so the question really is whether a T-shirt can be construed as sullying the politically antiseptic atmosphere of the polls. This might seem silly at first, but perhaps it is somewhat analogous to efforts to prevent states from compelling pregnant women seeking abortions to read literature on the procedure prior to encountering it. Ideally the information provided in either case would be value-free and fact-rich, but we know how difficult this is to achieve. It may be better to just ensure silence rather than trying to fairly adjudicate the conversation.

There will be those who say that banning T-shirts will either make us or prove that we already are a nation of wimps because it demonstrates that we are all so fragile that even clothing can unduly sway us.

Of course they used to say this about the threat of physical violence at the polls, too -- that only a coward would be turned away by intimidation. In any case, however, you feel about the rationale behind this law, please don't be disenfranchised today by wearing your favorite Sarah Palin shirt.

The editorial board is composed of David Grant, Laurel Colella, David McIlroy, Jackie Peters and Sally Bull.

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