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NEWS
Avoid campaign gear at polls
Campaign shirts, buttons, caps, fliers and even newspapers are not welcome in polling places on Election Day.
Purchase this photoHUNTINGTON -- T-shirts and pins plugging a favorite candidate are common forms of expression during the campaign season, but the only way you back a candidate in or near a polling place is with your ballot, election officials say.
Electioneering laws in West Virginia, Kentucky and Ohio prohibit voters from wearing any election paraphernalia that has to do with a candidate or issue on the ballot in and within a certain distance from a polling place. If a voter is wearing or carrying election paraphernalia, county clerks in the Tri-State said they will ask the voter to remove the material.
If the voter refuses to remove the item, they may be asked to leave.
Laws also prohibit voters from bringing in any materials that might be seen as influencing their vote, such as fliers or newspapers.
Cabell County Clerk Karen Cole warns anyone wearing a pin, hat, shirt, sticker or other election material will be asked to remove the item. If it's a shirt, Cole said voters have the option to turn it inside out or wear a coat over it before heading into the polling place.
In West Virginia on election day, voters are not allowed to have election paraphernalia within 300 feet of the entrance of a polling place, Cole said. During the early voting period, which begins Wednesday at county courthouses, the regulations are different.
Cole said no campaigning is allowed on the county courthouse, county property or property annexed by the county. The purpose of electioneering laws is to allow people to vote without being influenced or discouraged by political campaigns, Cole said.
"Before electioneering laws, voters complained that they felt they were being harassed," Cole said. "(Voters) felt they were being discouraged from voting."
Kentucky also prohibits campaign materials within 300 feet of the polling place. However, Les Fugate, deputy assistant Kentucky Secretary of State, said no matter what election paraphernalia voters wear to the polls, they will not be prohibited from voting. But they do risk being charged with a crime.
Voters will be made aware they are breaking the law and if they refuse to take off or cover up the material, they could be charged with a misdemeanor, Fugate said.
The electioneering law, Fugate said, was created to eliminate the prevention of voting and intimidation. In the 1980s, Fugate said voters had to go through intimidation and vote-buying tactics when heading to the polls. The distance requirement intends to allow voters to make their choices without outside influence.
"Voters used to have to go through a gauntlet of campaign workers to vote," Fugate said. "Voters didn't want that experience. They just want to go to the polls and cast their vote."
Ohio's electioneering laws are nearly identical to West Virginia's and Kentucky's.
According to Catherine Overbeck, director of the Lawrence County Board of Elections, the only difference between Ohio's and West Virginia's laws is the minimum distance away from a polling place someone can campaign. Overbeck said people can display campaign material 100 feet from the polling place in Ohio.
Typically, Overbeck said, voters have complied with the state's electioneering law. A few years back, Overbeck remembered a man voted without a shirt on after he was asked to turn his political shirt inside out. As long as a voter removes the election paraphernalia, he or she will not be asked to leave, Overbeck said.
