澳門立法會選舉中選票自拍禁令的合憲性分析

This article analyzes the constitutionality of the ballot-selfie prohibition in Macao Legislative Assembly Election. The author thinks that prevention of vote buying is indeed a convincing legitimate purpose, and a compelling public interest worthy of protection. Nevertheless, there is a substantial mismatch between the means of ballot-selfie prohibition and its objective of vote-buying prevention. Actually, the major or even the full effect of this means is only to restrict voters’ important legitimate rights, such as freedom of speech. If it is adequate to prevent vote buying by simply making it unlawful to use an image of a completed ballot, the government then should not too readily sacrifice voters’ liberty for efficiency. Given the fact that no such vote-selling market has emerged in jurisdictions where do not have ballot-selfie prohibition, Macao government should be more rational on this matter. The prohibition is likely to excessively restrict voters’ liberty yet yield no practical results. Without concrete evidence, the government should not adopt means of this sort based merely on conjecture.