cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/21109313
I went to vote today in Georgia USA. People showed up wearing bed sheets over them. What is this supposed to communicate exactly??
Well whatayaknow, Republicans are right
Dead people really are voting
spooky month 👻
Isn’t it generally illegal to film or take photos in a voting location? And now people are further spreading it? Considering how divided this country has gotten, an argument can be made this is dangerous for those in the picture.
I’m not sure a good argument can be made. Being at a polling place doesn’t say who you’re voting for. I don’t see the danger.
“I saw a photo of you being civically responsible!”
How dare you!
The argument goes like this: Georgia, along with 11 other states, has prohibited filming and photos in polling locations, which is a legal prohibition in the public interest that has been upheld by the courts.
That’s not an argument that being filmed at a polling place is dangerous.
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Show a rabid Trump republican a picture of voters at a polling place and inform them it’s in a democratic stronghold and record what they say. I’ll wait.
They’d probably lose their shit even if you showed them a picture of a squirel or something innocent like that.
K.
It’s not quite generally prohibited, but Georgia is one of 12 states where it is prohibited.
Filming / photography in public is a First Amendment protected activity.
In public (and only when one would have a reasonable assumption of privacy, or whatever). Poll places don’t follow those same rules. If they can prevent people from wearing campaign-related tshirts within X feet of a polling place, then they can prevent people from taking photos. Which they do.
First ammendment doesn’t protect you from a baseball bat.
The fact that there are no other images of this is odd, but assuming it is at an early voting location today, perhaps they are pretending to be “ghost voters”:
As that drama played out, readers asked Snopes to look into social media posts and media stories reporting that multiple counties in the U.S. had more registered voters than voting-eligible residents. One such story was published by the Washington Times and headlined, “Judicial Watch finds 1.8 million ‘ghost voters’ in 29 states, warns of ‘dirty elections.’”
Judicial Watch, a right wing legal activist organization, claimed to have discovered in an October 2020 study that “353 U.S. counties had 1.8 million more registered voters than eligible voting-age citizens.”
Source: https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/ghost-voters-in-29-states/
Some further important context, the ‘comparison’ Judicial Watch made to come to this conclusion was based on, on one side, ‘the most recent voter registration data for counties’ and on the other, a math-based population estimate collected over the course of five years.
It’s kind of like claiming that Johnny, age eighteen, is a different person from Johnny, age thirteen, based on height difference.
Edit: A better analogy might be standing in front of Johnny, taking off your glasses, and then demanding the blurry blob tell you what it did with Johnny.
Or perhaps accusing someone of short changing you based purely on the sound the coins make on the counter.
It is halloween after all 👻👻👻👻👻🎃🎃🎃🎃
Sharia law is getting out of hand smh
Funny as fuck😂😂
You mean taking pictures of people at polling locations?
Which is prohibited in polling locations in Georgia. That is why they were asked to leave. You can wear costumes to vote as long as they don’t constitute electioneering. The definition of electioneering can be fairly broad however. Wearing a black lives matter tshirt, for instance, has been considered electioneering.
Is the same true for a blue lives matter shirt, I wonder?
It varies by state, but the simple answer is yes, the same would be true. Neither hypothetical tshirt is likely to lead to allegations of electioneering today given the slogans are no longer central in political discourse.
This is not my picture; I only crossposted it (original was in !nostupidquestions@lemmy.world ). I also only did so because it was apparently being deleted and I wanted it not to be lost (sorry if it’s a loose fit for the community because of that).
According to OP, it was an early voting location in Georgia. The thread was deleted 9 hours after being posted, with a score of 125 and 36 comments.
Edit: the deletion my not be as nefarious as I assumed; there’s a similar thread in this community that (as I write this) still exists. https://lemmy.world/post/21116630
Weird, your linked post seems to be gone now
Edit: actually, I can’t find any of the original posts. And when I try to Google it I can’t find anything either. Wtf
Edit 2: okay, it took some digging but by searching all of Lemmy by comments and filtering by time, I was able to find the two original posts. Both have been deleted, I assume by moderators? And I can’t find anything when I reverse Google search the image. Something smells fishy. For SEO: Georgia election; election interference; voter intimidation; KKK; sheets; ghosts; early voting; Cobb County
This time I had the foresight to take screenshots:
Well that’s illegal. They’re probably trying to stir up trouble because Cobb county goes Democrat.
Damn, looks like you’re super popular or something! 😄
It looks like I don’t mark my messages read, LOL.
Or maybe you said something SUPER controversial in an extremely active post? 😁
Man, I wish Lemmy had enough participation to have posts that active!
I’m sorry but some white sheets + sunglasses is absolutely not resembling the KKK in any way, especially since everyone in the US is already dressing up for Halloween. This seems to be just overblown drama. Some dumbos probably thought they’d make some funny ghost voting video for tictok or something, not knowing the rules. Claiming this to be some sort of intimidation attempt is just a fragile victim complex.
You really can’t see how wearing sheets to a voting station in a state with deep historical ties to the KKK could be perceived poorly?
So people in that state are not allowed to dress up as ghosts?
Context.
You try to use this as a reason to not sound like a bigot, but you’re just meaning to say “yes”.
You are absolutely not allowed to film or disturb a place of voting.
I never said anything implying the opposite. But filming also does not make you a Nazi either.
Agreed. This is most likely just some people being doofy.
I can’t tell if the original post is an elaborate hoax with a link that never worked in the first place or if something is legit happening. Why would there be lines to vote already? Maybe I’m naive and early voting is that difficult in Georgia that people are lining up now. I don’t know, my ballot gets mailed to me by default and I can just walk up and drop it off any time up until polls close on election day. This feels like it’s a post to sow discord but 🤷♂️
Yeah I really can’t tell the truth here. All I know is something isn’t right
Edit: there are lines for early voting in Cobb County, Georgia, where the original pictures are allegedly from. There were some lines but not long waits usually between 15-30 minutes but many places less than that.
There wasn’t much of a line at 7:00 a.m. a week ago when I voted in that same building, but last year it took me half an hour or so to get up to the door. It’s also typically a little longer wait on weekends.
If I had to guess it’s to protect their identity so that they can vote without being harassed. But I will fully admit I only looked at the picture and didn’t click the link or anything.
It’s a mystery! Get Scooby and the gang! They’ll unmask those ghost.
(Disclaimer; don’t do this.)
Prooobably Klan shit
merica
I mean at this point might as well go ahead and do it, “I was scared for my life, they were many and threatening” still works as an argument right? And what the fuck is the Klan gonna do about it? Retaliate by wearing white in other locations?
Are they trying to prove that they can vote without being identified or something?
These are trump branded kkk hoods with misquoted portions of the constitution printed on the inside, poorly made in China.
As a Brit looking at this, my first reaction to the picture was “queueing?” - we never have to queue to vote here. Polling stations feel like they outnumber voters sometimes…
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Your system is insane.
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It’s not just, you know, Halloween?
Checks calendar. No, it’s not.
Just sad people wanting attention that you are giving them
I guess it is to protect the personality. Maybe MAGA maybe some fearful Democrats or GREENS :O
