## Facts

- Minnesota law barred wearing a “political badge, political button, or other political insignia” at or about polling places on Election Day, without defining “political.”
- State officials issued an Election Day Policy directing election judges to exclude apparel featuring party or candidate names, ballot-question advocacy, “issue oriented” material, and material promoting groups with recognizable political views.
- In 2010, a voter wore a Tea Party Patriots shirt (“Don’t Tread on Me”) and a “Please I.D. Me” button supporting voter-identification requirements; he was initially turned away and later allowed to vote after officials recorded his name for possible enforcement.
- Organizational and individual plaintiffs challenged the ban on First Amendment grounds (facial and as applied) and alleged selective enforcement under the Equal Protection Clause.
- Lower courts rejected the facial First Amendment challenge; the Supreme Court reviewed only the facial First Amendment validity of the political-apparel ban.

## Issues

1. Whether the interior of a polling place on Election Day is a nonpublic forum for First Amendment purposes.
2. Whether a polling-place prohibition on “political” apparel is a reasonable, viewpoint-neutral restriction in a nonpublic forum when “political” is left undefined and implemented through broad administrative guidance.
3. Whether a restriction that leaves election judges substantial discretion to decide what is “political” is constitutionally permissible under the Free Speech Clause.

## Decision

- The Court held the polling place is a nonpublic forum on Election Day.
- The Court accepted that the State may seek to preserve peace, order, and decorum in polling places and may restrict campaigning inside the polling place.
- The Court concluded the Minnesota ban, as written and administered, violated the First Amendment because it was not reasonable in a nonpublic forum.
- The statute’s undefined term “political,” coupled with expansive guidance, failed to provide objective, workable standards and invited arbitrary enforcement by election judges.
- The Court reversed and remanded.

## Legal Principles

- In a nonpublic forum, the government may impose content-based speech limits only if they are reasonable and viewpoint neutral.
- A State may protect the polling-place environment and may prohibit campaign advocacy and electioneering inside the polling place.
- A speech restriction in a nonpublic forum must be capable of reasoned application; standards that are indeterminate and confer open-ended discretion on front-line officials are not reasonable.
- Facial viewpoint neutrality does not save a restriction whose breadth and lack of objective standards create a substantial risk of arbitrary and discriminatory enforcement.

## Conclusion

The Court invalidated Minnesota’s polling-place political-apparel ban because the undefined and expansively applied concept of “political” lacked objective, workable enforcement standards, making the restriction unreasonable even under the more permissive rules governing nonpublic fora.


Minnesota Voters All. v. Mansky, 585 U.S. 1 (2018)