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
- Whether the interior of a polling place on Election Day is a nonpublic forum for First Amendment purposes.
- 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.
- 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.