It pays to have Clinton Privilege.
New York election regulators seem to be looking the other way today as Bill and Hillary Clinton campaigned outside their polling location this morning.
Video published by Reuters shows the Clintons posing for photos inside their precinct, as well as “greeting voters” outside the door.
Campaign signs and stickers are clearly visible.
According to a portion of the statute posted by NYPIRG, the Clintons appear to be violating state election laws.
NY Election Law on electioneering: While the polls are open no person shall do any electioneering within the polling place, or in any public street, within a one hundred foot radial measured from the entrances designated by the inspectors of election, to such polling place or within such distance in any place in a public manner; and no political banner, button, poster or placard shall be allowed in or upon the polling place or within such one hundred foot radial. (N.Y. Election Law § 8-104(1))
Bill Clinton behaved similarly in Massachusetts in March.
RELATED: Bill Clinton campaigns outside polling location — in violation of state law?
A Massachusetts voter was fuming after she said her polling location was shut down to accommodate a visit by Bill Clinton March 1.
Angela Grace posted cell phone video showing orange barrels and yellow police line tape at what she said was a New Bedford voting location.
“I haven’t seen one person be able to come in and be able to vote in here. Everything is blocked off. No person can park here.
“They are affecting the voting at this poll. It’s ridiculous. It’s fraud and illegal,” she declared while panning the camera across the scene showing the media and police milling about while dozens of observers are cordoned off.
“From one side of the street to the other, there’s no way anybody can get down here to vote.”
She laid the blame at the feet of the New Bedford mayor, Jon F. Mitchell.
“Mayor of New Bedford, MA campaigning for Hillary and blocking this voting poll!!! No one has come here to vote in the 2 hours I’ve been here by the door!!” she wrote in the video description.
Another video, posted by WFHN, showed Mitchell speaking into a bull horn after Bill Clinton addressed the crowd for several minutes.
Mitchell proceeded to campaign for Hillary Clinton outside the polling location, telling the crowd she spent some of her “formative years just a few blocks from here.”
“Let’s do our part to get her over the hump now,” he said.
Clinton and Mitchell appeared to be in violation of a Massachusetts state law that bars electioneering within a certain distance of a polling location.
Via the National Association of Secretaries of State, Massachusetts law reads:
Within 150 feet of a polling place…no person shall solicit votes for or against, or otherwise promote
or oppose, any person or political party or position on a ballot question, to be voted on at the current
election. No campaign material intended to influence the vote of a voter in the ongoing election,
including campaign literature, buttons, signs, and ballot stickers, may be posted, exhibited, circulated,
or distributed in the polling place, in the building where it is located, on the building walls, on the
premises where the building stands, or within 150 feet of an entrance door to the building.
( 950 CMR 53.03(18); 54.04.22)
The video appeared to show the duo well within 150 feet of the building.
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