HARRISBURG, Pa. -- On Nov. 4, could poll workers become the fashion police?Pennsylvania Republican Party leaders are upset with a state ruling that lets election officials in each county to determine whether voters can wear campaign buttons, T-shirts, hats or stickers when they go inside polling places to vote on Nov. 4.State GOP Chairman Robert Gleason and former state Supreme Court Justice Sandra Schulz Newman said at a news conference this week that the Department of State's decision could cause "chaos" inside polling places, with different decisions in different counties. They complained it also could turn poll workers into "fashion police" and "Vogue editors" as they rule on whether a voter's buttons, hats or T-shirts with a candidate's face or slogan are permissible or they are improper "electioneering.""We'd gotten complaints from people in the April primary that they'd been told to turn their T-shirts inside out or take off their button in order to vote," said Sara Rose, an ACLU attorney in Pittsburgh.She checked the state election code and found it "ambiguous" about what constituted illegal electioneering."We urged the Department of State to adopt a definition that is as narrow as possible," she said. "People should be able to have passive electioneering, such as wearing a T-shirt, button or sticker, but they should not actively electioneer, such as carrying a sign or handing out pamphlets."In a letter this week, state officials left it up to election boards in each of the state's 67 counties to decide whether voters in that county may wear political buttons or T-shirts when they walk inside a polling place to cast their ballot.Gleason said he thinks state election code is very clear: "no electioneering inside a polling place." He said wearing of political buttons, signs, shirts or other clothing with a candidate's name or picture on them is a form of "electioneering" and thus prohibited.But Chet Harhut, a state elections official, called such buttons and T-shirts "passive electioneering" and said the department isn't allowed to dictate to counties what paraphernalia they can or can't permit.The letter "is advice to counties, but it's not binding on them," he said. "A county can make its own determination" whether to allow voters to wear political garb inside a polling place. So far, counties such as York, Lawrence and Montgomery have decided not to allow political buttons or T-shirts.In the letter, Harhut said as long as a voter "takes no additional action to attempt to influence other voters in the polling place," it's legal to wear the material, he said.The department's ruling was hailed by the American Civil Liberties Union, which sees the wearing of a button or T-shirt as a matter of free speech.(E-mail Tom Barnes at tbarnes(at)post-gazette.com)(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)
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