Political

Polling booth selfies all the rage in the Netherlands

The Associated Press reports:

Dutch citizens and politicians united on Wednesday in posting voting booth selfie photos, an increasingly popular phenomenon that could threaten the principle of the secret ballot but also encourages people to vote.

Alexander Pechtold, who heads the centrist D66 party, was among the many Dutch voting in Wednesday’s local elections who tweeted a #stemfie, a combination of “stemmen”, the Dutch word for voting, and selfie.

The photos, often of voters posing with the red pencil used to make their democratic choice or the candidate list, spread over Twitter, Instagram and Facebook, with the #stemfie hashtag trending…

The phenomenon of the polling booth selfie is sweeping the world, forcing countries to take a position.

Some US states forbid polling booth selfies, some allow it, while it is expressly forbidden in South Africa and the Philippines.

On that last point, there are some secrecy rules in Britain which could effect selfies (such as regarding the official mark, exit polls and the reference to how voters shall “secretly mark his paper”).

Here are some examples of the #stemfie trend:

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