RICHMOND, Va.–A state policy barring Virginia voters from wearing candidate T-shirts, campaign buttons and other apparel with political messages into polling places is facing a constitutional challenge.
RICHMOND, Va.–A state policy barring Virginia voters from wearing candidate T-shirts, campaign buttons and other apparel with political messages into polling places is facing a constitutional challenge.
Chuck Epes of Richmond and Jill Borak of Fairfax County are asking the U.S. District Court in Richmond to strike down the Virginia Board of Elections’ ban on political apparel as an infringement of their First Amendment right to free expression.
Epes is a communications coordinator for the Chesapeake Bay Foundation while Borak is a staff attorney with the Central Virginia Legal Aid Society Inc.
The two are represented by the American Civil Liberties Union of Virginia and two other free-speech groups, which filed the federal lawsuit on their behalf on Dec. 10. The other groups are the Rutherford Institute and the Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Free Expression.
According to the suit, Epes and Borak each wore a Barack Obama campaign button or sticker into a polling place during the November presidential election, but election officials required them to remove or cover up the items before they could vote.
The state elections board, led by Jean W. Cunningham of Richmond, imposed the Election Day ban in response to requests for the state to employ a uniform policy rather than leaving enforcement decisions to local election officials.
The Virginia ACLU also is defending Leigh Purdum, a federal employee who was arrested Nov. 4 in Madison County when she refused to cover up her John McCain T-shirt. The former deputy sheriff apparently was the only person arrested in Virginia for violating the ban.
Her case is scheduled for court on March 24, but the ACLU hopes that her case will be dismissed if the ban is declared unconstitutional.
The General Assembly also will consider several bills at the upcoming session aimed at eliminating the ban. Attorney General Robert McDonnell, a Republican, is supporting legislation to end the ban as part of a package of election reforms he is promoting.
Special to the NNPA from the Richmond Free Press
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