International Law

Election law and the internet

This report from The New Zealand Herald highlights the difficulty of applying election laws to the internet:

The Electoral Finance Act has claimed its first scalp after a 21-year-old was obliged to take down his website when the Electoral Commission said it breached election rules by not including his name and address.

Andrew Moore, 21, set up the anti-Labour Party dontvotelabour.org.nz website this month but the commission contacted him soon afterwards to say it was election advertising and therefore an offence not to carry an authorisation statement with Mr Moore's name and address.

After a series of exchanges with the commission, Mr Moore took down the site yesterday, saying he could not afford lawyers' fees or the potential $10,000 fine if he was prosecuted.

"It would have cost thousands to take it through the courts.

"One shouldn't have to be wealthy enough to afford lawyers' fees to be able to say on your own personal website that you don't support the Government."

He replaced the anti-Government material with an explanation of why he had removed the site.

It urged people not to vote for Labour, specifying reasons including the Electoral Finance Act and the anti-smacking law.

An authorisation statement with a name and contact address were also required on advertisements under old electoral law.

However, the new law exempts "the publication by an individual on a non-commercial basis, on the internet of his or her personal political views (being the kind of publication commonly known as a blog)".

While Mr Moore's website was not a traditional diary form of blog - which would be exempt from the law - he said it was a website which stated his own personal view and should not be treated differently from a blog, many of which were highly partisan.

He said it was ridiculous that he should be forced to take down his website when the websites of the political parties did not carry authorisation statements.

Mr Moore said he lived at home and although the website had his cellphone number on it, he was unwilling to put his name and address on the site for reasons of his family's privacy and security.

He said the website had cost less than $100.

One month since the new law came into effect, the internet is causing the most headaches so far under the Electoral Finance Act.

Read more here.

Full post as published by Freedom to Differ on January 29, 2008 (boomark / email).