With Election Day coming up Tuesday, November 5, voters should be aware of rules on what they can say and wear while casting their ballot inside a polling place or dropping off mail ballots.
One is no electioneering — or trying to persuade someone to vote for a particular candidate or measure. However, what counts as electioneering is often unclear.
Ryan Ronco, Placer County’s registrar of voters, explained what electioneering is and how his elections office deals with the issue.
“We’re not talking about somebody that is wearing a T-shirt that says, ‘Down with Republicans or down with Democrat,’” Ronco said. “We’re talking about somebody that is wearing a T-shirt or is speaking over a loudspeaker or something like that, talking about a specific candidate or a specific measure that’s on the ballot in that particular election.”
Placer County’s election guidelines, which are similar to rules in other counties, state that electioneering is prohibited within the vicinity of a person in line to cast their ballot or within 100 feet of the entrance of a polling place, curbside voting or drop box.
More specifically, the guidelines describe electioneering as follows:
- Asking people to vote for or against any candidate or ballot measure.
- Displaying a candidate’s name, image or logo.
- Blocking access to or loitering near any ballot drop box.
- Providing any material or audible information for or against any candidate or ballot measure near any polling place, vote center or ballot drop box.
- Circulating petitions, including for initiatives, referenda, recall or candidate nominations.
- Distributing, displaying or wearing any clothing that includes a candidate’s name, image, logo and/or support or oppose any candidate or ballot measure.
- Displaying information or speaking to a voter about the voter’s eligibility to vote.
Ronco said the electioneering he’s seen is limited to political shirts or buttons that are specific to a candidate on the ballot. When that happens, poll workers inform individuals that they can’t wear those items while voting.
“And for the vast majority of people that fall into that category, they have absolutely no problem going to a restroom, turning their shirt inside out or taking that button off, or the hat or whatever.”
And although Ronco said he receives many complaints from one side against the other, in his experience, electioneering is done equally by Republican and Democratic voters. Most of the time, he said that’s because they are unaware of the law.
Ryan Ronco, registrar of voters for Placer County, points at ballots from previous elections Friday, Oct. 18. 2024 in Rocklin. He said they are required to hold these ballots for 22 months for federal elections, or six months for state elections.(Gerardo Zavala/CapRadio)
Why it matters
Ronco said it’s important to prohibit electioneering because polling places are “considered to be a sacred space” where voters “shouldn’t be influenced in any way.”
The very purpose of electioneering, Ronco explained, “is to influence.”
He noted that electioneering has been a small issue in the past and he expects the same this year as vote centers begin to open. More commonly, Ronco said his elections office fields a lot of questions from people who have issues with the voting process — something he said is not electioneering and is encouraged.
“The law says a person can go and ask questions at a polling place and be able to watch, observe what’s going on there and we are more than happy to accommodate people that have questions about the process,” he said. “What they can’t do is disrupt the process, so they can’t go there and continually ask questions to the point where the workers can’t get their job done.”
When that happens, Ronco said he or other election officials talk with the individual so that poll workers can do their jobs.
Nick Bennett, chair of the Placer County Democratic Central Committee, said limits on electioneering are important to ensure people are comfortable voting.
“These laws also help maintain order to help protect people who are working at those vote centers,” Bennett added.
He expects all of Placer County — particularly Republicans and Democrats — will abide by the laws in the upcoming election.
“I think most people want to have a smooth election day, and hopefully by the time we get to Nov. 5, most people will have already voted either by mail or during the early in-person voting,” he said. “I don’t think there’s a lot of incentive to engage in electioneering, at least illegal electioneering.”
Bennett said he doesn’t recall any illegal electioneering in Placer County in recent elections and noted that his group has been happy with how the county’s run elections.
CapRadio reached out to the Republican Party of Placer County and the Placer County Young Republicans to learn their thoughts on electioneering, but they did not respond by the time of publication.
What now?
Although Ronco said electioneering in Placer County isn’t much of an issue, a recent court decision could give some voters more incentive to push for their favorite candidate or measure. Earlier this month, the U.S. Court of Appeals dissolved an order it had previously issued preventing Kalshi, a New York startup company, from taking bets on which political party would control the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate after the upcoming November elections.
The ruling means it is legal for the company to resume such betting while the court further considers the underlying issues in the case, according to the Associated Press. Better Markets, a nonprofit group advocating for the public interest in financial markets and an opponent to this decision, argued that gambling on elections will create incentives for bad actors to interfere with elections.
“The use of AI, deepfakes and social media to manipulate voters and influence election outcomes has already become all too real,” said Stephen Hall, the group’s legal director, in the AP article. “Ready access to an election gambling contract such as Kalshi’s will intensify that danger with the promise of quick profits.”
Ronco said he wasn’t aware of this ruling, but acknowledged that it could encourage more electioneering because people will have “a stake in the game.”
However, he argued people are already taking elections “too seriously,” noting people are “probably spending too much time on elections these days.”
“We’ve lost our ability to have Thursday night must-see TV that everyone talked around the water cooler about the next day,” he said. “Politics is kind of our entertainment right now, I feel, and because of that, we’re going to have situations like this.”
One thing he said Placer County is doing to address this is an outreach program to inform high school seniors about the importance of becoming informed and active voters. Part of the program includes inviting members of political parties to do a “mini-debate,” to explain why they are Republican or Democrats and to answer questions.
“And their representatives get along and enjoy each other’s company,” Ronco highlighted. “We might be in an era where you’re betting on your congressional candidate to win an election, but at the end of the day, we have to remember that we’re all human and doing this life together. It’s nice to have those students see that members of political parties can actually laugh, joke, talk and get along together.”
Regarding the court decision, Bennett, the Placer County Democratic committee chair, said allowing bets on congressional races might garner more nefarious interest in elections, but he’s not too concerned about it.
“While it might not be the healthiest thing for our Democratic process, it is something that currently exists right now,” he added.
Several vote centers in Placer County opened Saturday and are available through election day with another 10 that will open Nov. 2. Locations can be found by visiting Placer County Elections Office’s website.
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