From a story here , about a newly unseated city council member who is claiming that his opponent’s habit of dropping of cookies with old friends, supporters, newsrooms, etc. is electioneering, and must be stopped.
I considered pitting the guy, but thought I’d put it here to question the actual legality of it before deciding if he is:
A: legally correct, but a serious wet blanket & sore loser
B: Serious wet blanket and REALLY sore loser
Anyone have any handy knowledge about electioneering?
It certainly doesn’t look like the cookies were given out under any condition of the recipient supporting or voting for the person giving them out, so I don’t see this as unfair electioneering.
Would this argument fly just as easily for you if it had been crisp $100 bills that he had been passing out? What if it went beyond only supporters and went to the general public, or if it was just to newsrooms?
Surely I can’t be the only one who seeing the thread title, thought CometotheDarkSidewehaveCookies has decided to run for office? 
The deal here is that no one can do any campaigning inside of the poll area. Even when they are outside (say, in the parking lot of the church where you vote), they have to be X feet away from the door.
What the article is saying that these particular cookies being present in the polling place, in a bright orange box with a name stamped on it that (in that town) was apparently synonymous with the candidate’s name (think Kenmore -> Sears), was akin to having a sign that said “VOTE FOR VORHEES!” inside the polling place which is a BIG no-no.
The article doesn’t go into detail as to how synonymous the cookies are with Vorhees. Perhaps it’s an Avon-type thing? Think of it as her being the only Avon lady in town and most of the town goes to her for Avon stuff and then “simply” leaving an Avon shipment with one of the poll workers, in a big box stamped “AVON.”
In the other candidate’s mind, this is skirting the line of “electioneering” or rather, putting your campaign crap inside the boundaries of the polling place.
Many years ago in California Trader Joe’s Markets gave out Hersey’s chocolate bars on election day. All you had to do to get a free chocolate bar was show up and show your “I Voted” stub from the polling place.
One year just a few days before the election the state ruled it electioneering, and Ordered TJ not to give out candy bars. TJs got stuck with truck loads of chocolate bars. My local TJ’s posted the letter from the state, that said while TJs did not push any one candidate over another the law prevented the giving of any tangible ( or item of value, I forget) in exchange for a vote. Thus while TJs motives were pure, it was flat against the law.
Boy did TJs have a sale on chocolate.
In most jurisdictions, it’s not only illegal to offer incentives to vote for a specific candidate… it’s illegal to offer incentives to vote at all. In Michigan, where this story took place, it is illegal to offer voters rides to their polling place.
Michigan elecion law prohibits offering inducements to vote or to refrain from voting, but I don’t believe the mere presence of the cookies could be construed as a violation. There was no quid pro quo.
Campaigning too close to a polling place is prohibited, as others have suggested, but again, it would be hard to construe that simply having the candidate’s name visible was a violation.
(f) A person shall not hire a motor vehicle or other conveyance or cause the same to be done, for conveying voters, other than voters physically unable to walk, to an election.
I’d read this as I can’t offer to give you taxi fare or rent a minivan to pick people up. It doesn’t seem illegal to use your own car or that of volunteers to give rides, but IANAL or a Michigander.
I don’t think this would be the same as simply having a name visible. It is more like “Voorhees is a great person who gave cookies to the hard working volunteers at this polling location.” If she wants to give cookies to the location volunteers, put it in a plain white box, instead of one that voters will identify with you.
When it’s trivial to avoid the appearance of impropriety, why not do it?
Can’t speak to other locales, but around here when they say “no electioneering within 25 feet of the polling place,” they mean it. No signs, no literature, no campaign workers, no nothing (and certainly no cookies!) If someone were to plaster a bumper sticker next to entrance to the polling place, an election worker would come outside and remove it.
Even when our candidates for city council or state representative or whatever stop by to shake hands, they stay outside the magic 25- foot circle. The mere act of coming into a polling place for any reason besides casting your own ballot is a no-no.
Here in Minnesota, the law prohibits giving any ‘thing of monetary value’ to induce someone to vote in a particular way, or to refrain from voting.
But items of nominal value, such as penny candy given out at parades & county fairs, and pens, pencils, rulers, notepads, emery boards, etc. marked with the candidates name, are not violations of this law.
So the line becomes distinguishing ‘nominal value’ from ‘things of monetary value’.