(credit: Lower Columbia College)

The 1st US Circuit Court of Appeals ruled (PDF) there was no compelling government need to restrict First Amendment rights and ban voters from disseminating pictures of their ballots or of themselves posed with their ballots. State lawmakers, when approving the law that carries a $1,000 fine, had maintained in 2014 that the statute was needed to combat voter fraud—like having people coerced into voting a certain way and then having to prove it via social media or by some other means, for example. The appeals court explained:

Digital photography, the internet, and social media are not unknown quantities — they have been ubiquitous for several election cycles, without being shown to have the effect of furthering vote buying or voter intimidation. As the plaintiffs note, “small cameras” and digital photography “have been in use for at least 15 years,” and New Hampshire cannot identify a single complaint of vote buying or intimidation related to a voter’s publishing a photograph of a marked ballot during that period.

No federal law addresses the issue. That means across the US, the law in the 50 states on voting booth selfies remains mixed. There’s a few court challenges across the country. The court that ruled Wednesday covers the states of New Hampshire, Massachusetts, and Maine. The Huffington Post has a lengthy guide on which state’s it’s OK to post a picture of yourself showing your votes this November.