Attorney General: No Ongoing Investigation On Singer Timberlake For Ballot Selfie

A local district attorney said on Tuesday that there is no ongoing investigation on pop star Justin Timberlake for posting a selfie in a polling station on social media. This after Tennessee officials said hours earlier that a probe was under way.

Shelby County District Attorney General Amy Weirich said she is out of town at a conference. No one in her office is presently looking into the matter nor will be using their limited means to do so, she added.

A representative for Timberlake did not respond to requests for comment.

With the latest hullabaloo over so-called ballot selfies, the actor and singer seemed to have violated Tennessee election law when he posted the photo.

Timberlake posted the photo on Monday with a caption saying that he had traveled to his hometown of Memphis from Los Angeles to participate in early voting ahead of the November 8 election.

Part of the caption on the photo says, “Get out and VOTE! #exerciseyourrighttovote.” It was posted on Instagram, where he has more than 37 million followers.

Tennessee law forbids voters from recording or taking videos or photographs inside a polling station.

The propagation of social media and cellphone cameras has created disagreements in states that have laws against taking photos within polling booths and sharing photos of marked ballots.

The laws aim to put off voter intimidation and any slow down of the voting process. However, in some cases, the laws predate the social media age.

The Law is unconstitutional

In Michigan, a federal court on Monday sided with a man who said that the law there prohibiting voters from taking photos of their marked ballots infringed on his constitutional right to free speech. The court stopped implementation of the law.

Meanwhile, two voters in Colorado filed a complaint on Monday looking to reverse a law there that outlawed the showing of an accomplished ballot to others. They argued that the sanction was unconstitutional.

 

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