Please keep this in mind as you head to the polls Tuesday.
Since an election will be held tomorrow, The Mitchell Police Division would like to remind the public that it is illegal to conduct certain activities within 100 feet of any entrance to a polling place. In general, it is illegal to gather petition signatures, post campaign posters/signs, use any communication or photographic device in any way that distracts or intimidates voters, solicit votes, interfere with voter’s access to a polling place, or interfere with an election worker. The law that prohibits these actions is noted below.
Electioneering, offices, distracting communications devices, and signature gathering prohibited near polling place–Violation as misdemeanor. Except for sample ballots and materials and supplies necessary for the conduct of the election, no person may, in any polling place or within or on any building in which a polling place is located or within one hundred feet from any entrance leading into a polling place, maintain a campaign office or public address system, or use any communication or photographic device in a manner which repeatedly distracts, interrupts, or intimidates any voter or election worker, or display campaign posters, signs, or other campaign materials or by any like means solicit any votes for or against any person or political party or position on a question submitted or which may be submitted. No person may engage in any practice which interferes with the voter’s free access to the polls or disrupts the administration of the polling place, or conduct any petition signature gathering, on the day of an election, within one hundred feet of a polling place. For the purposes of this section, the term, polling place, means a designated place voters may go to vote on the day of the election or go to vote absentee. A violation of this section is a Class 2 misdemeanor.
