Is It Legal to Hand Out Food and Water at Polling Places?
It’s safe to say that discussions about election laws and the rules of local polling places have never been as prevalent as they are today. Regardless of which side of the aisle you land on, the conversation about the laws that govern how voters are allowed to act inside and even outside of your local polling place.
With the 2024 Election only weeks away, and with early voting taking place in various places around the nation, it’s important to understand the legality of serving voters in your community.
If you’ve been considering handing out food or water, which is common in many areas, especially those that experience long lines, you need to ensure that you’re acting within the framework of the law.
While there is plenty of misinformation online about what’s legal and what’s illegal when it comes to polling place rules, we’ve got you covered with the truth about what you can and can’t do.
Polling Place Laws and Regulations
Every municipality in the United States has laws in place that prevent certain behaviors within a certain distance of local polling places.
Electioneering
For instance, candidates cannot stand near the doors of a polling place and campaign for votes. However, that’s not where the rules stop.
It’s illegal for voters who support a candidate to be within a certain distance of the polling place while campaigning.
While there’s certainly nothing wrong with supporting your chosen candidate right up until the last minute, it’s important to note that you cannot stand at your local polling place and pressure people to vote for them. This is called electioneering and there are federal laws that prohibit it.
No Signs Within 100 Feet
If you’ve ever been to a polling location, you’ve probably seen campaign signs along the side of road leading up to it. Many candidates and their supporters will place these signs as close as they possibly can before violating the law.
For instance, if your local polling place’s laws dictate that there’s no campaigning with 100 yards of the polling place, you may find signs 101 yards away. That’s legal. Any signs within 100 yards are illegal.
Some jurisdictions also have laws that prohibit voters wearing shirts, hats, or buttons that support a candidate inside the polling place or even outside. Again, these laws are in place to ensure that other voters do not feel pressured into voting for a certain person.
Handing Out Food and Water
However, there are some voters who want to hand out snacks and water to people who are waiting to vote. This is especially common in major metropolitans and areas where long lines are common at the polling place.
The legality of this practice has been at the center of much debate over the last few years, and if you’re planning on doing this, you need to know what you can and cannot do according to the law.
Controversy of Passing Out Food and Water at Polling Places
Passing out food and water at polling places is certainly not a new practice, but it has received a lot of attention in recent years. However, candidates and their supporters have concerns about the practice, as some believe that it can open the door for electioneering and pressuring voters who are waiting for their turn to vote.
If you live in a small town, you may not have run into this concept before. With more than 100,000 polling places across the US, plenty of them are in towns where voters don’t have to wait in line for very long, if there’s a line at all.
However, there are plenty of polling places that leave would-be voters standing in line for hours. Those are the locations where people generally want to pass out water and snacks.
Are there people who want to use the distribution of food and water to influence voters? Undoubtedly.
However, there are also voters who simply want to ensure that other voters don’t leave a polling place without voting because they grow too thirsty or hungry to wait.
Unfortunately, there’s rarely a good way to decide who is there for the right reasons and who is trying to circumvent the law. The practice came under a lot of scrutiny in areas that are hotly contested, as candidates, their advisors, and their supporters worried that people may be using food and water as a means of swaying voters.
Controversy in Georgia
The state of Georgia found itself at the center of this controversy when state policymakers enacted a law that made it illegal for people to hand out food and water to voters who were waiting in line. Those who opposed the law pointed to the fact that handing out basic necessities like food and water is just an example of “neighbors helping neighbors.”
Candidates who feared the worst claimed that someone wearing a shirt, hat, or button supporting a candidate, which is legal in Georgia, giving someone a bottle of water when they’re thirsty, could be seen as electioneering and an attempt to sway a voter into voting the same way as the person who gave them water.
Unfortunately, some of the lines in Georgia were incredibly long, leaving some voters standing in line for up to eight hours. However, the state passed the law that made it illegal for anyone, including nonpartisan groups to pass out supplies to waiting voters.
What Should You Do?
If you want to support voters in your area by providing food and drink to them, it’s important that you act according to the law. While every state has laws against electioneering, not every state has laws that prohibit supporting voters by giving them food and drink.
If you’re unsure about what you can and cannot do in your state, you can reach out to your local courthouse for more information.
If you find that you cannot be actively engaged in handing out food and water at the polling place, consider setting up outside the restricted areas.
In the same way that candidates and their supporters are allowed to place signs outside the restricted areas, there are no laws that prohibit supporting voters with food and water in those spaces. You can also support local groups that have already gone through the process of finding the legal path to helping local voters through monetary donations or even volunteering your time.
The penalties for breaking polling place laws range in severity. In some places, people who are caught electioneering are simply escorted away from the polling place, which while not a great outcome, is certainly better than some of the other options, which can include hefty fines and even arrest.
While arrests are rare at polling places, it is possible to get arrested for passing out food and water at a polling place if such action is illegal in your state.
Positive Voting Experience for Everyone
The goal of electioneering laws is to ensure that everyone who casts a vote gets to have a pleasant experience while doing so.
By removing any pressure that gets placed on voters who are waiting for their turn in the booth, state and federal legislators want to ensure that voters are making their own decision about which candidates to support.
If you want to help meet some practical needs, make sure that you can do so legally.