There is a First Amendment right to film ballot drop boxes.

Not surprising.

No administration, not even under Obama, weaponized the Justice Department as nakedly for its political purposes. The Garland era makes the Reno and Holder eras seem like nostalgic ideals of justice.

From raids against abortion clinic civil disobedience protesters while calculatedly ignoring abortion violence against pregnancy clinics to finding new ways to “monitor” political opponents, the Biden regime has turned the DOJ into its own Stasi.

Here’s the DOJ’s next bid for election interference.

The Justice Department on Monday waded into a closely watched election lawsuit in Arizona where several civic groups have accused right-wing activists of intimidating voters at ballot drop boxes.

The allegations “raise serious concerns of voter intimidation,” the Justice Department wrote, adding that “vigilante ballot security efforts” and “private campaigns to video record voters” likely violate the federal Voting Rights Act.

“Citizen-led election monitoring activities are more likely to put voters in reasonable fear of harassment, intimidation, coercion, or interference with their voting rights,” DOJ added.

This is a situation within the scope of states, in this case, Arizona, to manage. The DOJ has, unfortunately, some authority to intervene in state actions, there’s no reason to get involved here.

Independent individuals and election integrity groups concerned about ballot harvesting are monitoring drop boxes. The DOJ and Democrat voting groups defining dropping off envelopes as “voting” is already a troubling definition.

There is a First Amendment right to film ballot drop boxes. Or the area around it. It’s not the same as exposing someone’s vote. And defining any drop box or mailbox as a polling place raises a whole lot more troubling questions about the scope of a proposed DOJ First Amendment ban.

The simple answer would be to limit drop boxes to polling places. Leftists obviously don’t want to allow that because it would defeat their purpose.

The Justice Department filing dovetailed with some of the arguments put forward by the League of Women Voters, specifically claiming there aren’t constitutional protections for election vigilantism.

“Much like a citizen’s refusal to pay taxes does not become protected speech because she is attempting to express disapproval of the IRS, photographing a voter’s license plate does not become protected speech whenever the photographer seeks to express disapproval of drop-box voting,” the Justice Department said.

“Dovetailed”. That’s a misspelling of coordinated.

Did Kirsten Clarke write that dumb argument herself? Filming video is straightforwardly a First Amendment act. A financial transaction is not. That’s why filming a police officer is protected by the First Amendment while slipping him a twenty isn’t.

Does the DOJ really want to completely erase the First Amendment by conflating the two?

Filming is a First Amendment act regardless of the intent of the photographer. Restricting it requires a very high barrier.

Last week, Attorney General Merrick Garland spoke out, saying the Justice Department “will not permit voters to be intimidated” during the midterm elections.

Correction, the DOJ will insist on intimidating voters during any election that Garland is in charge.

Article posted with permission from Daniel Greenfield