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By Trisha Thadani and Deepa Seetharaman 

Next week, there will be something new in the voting booth: Live video streaming.

This is the first U.S. presidential election where live-streaming tools, which encourage users to broadcast their surroundings in real time, are available from Facebook Inc. and Twitter Inc.

As was the case with selfies four years ago, the use of live video in polling stations and within the voting booth could exacerbate the tension between freedom of expression and the right to privacy.

"The rhetoric of this campaign creates a desire to document," said Michelle De Mooy, an acting director of the privacy team at the Center for Democracy & Technology, a nonprofit and nonpartisan technology advocacy organization based in Washington, D.C. "There's a certain sense of, 'I have this tool that can document what I've done and there's no gray area.'"

Legally, a gray area has opened up, as technological innovation has outpaced the law. In many states, streaming live video from polling places is likely to be deemed illegal.

Many years ago, some states put in place laws banning photography and video of polling places and ballots to prevent vote buying, intimidation and coercion. In theory, if photos and videos are allowed in voting booths, voters can more easily prove how they voted.

There are major distinctions between selfies and live streaming, experts say. Live video is more likely to capture someone else in the image without his or her consent. Also, there is no lag between when something is filmed and when it is broadcast.

"Without a lag, election workers can't intervene and ask voters to delete the video," said Lisa Manheim, an election-law professor at the University of Washington School of Law. "It presents more of a challenge to election administrators than a simple ballot selfie."

Live video streaming could add an extra level of surveillance inside polling stations to ensure poll workers and other voters are behaving fairly, said Jonathan Stonestreet, an associate director of the democracy program at the Carter Center, which is involved in election observation world-wide.

However, it could be also be a form of voter intimidation if voters start to doubt the secrecy of their ballots. "The basic point of a polling station is securing that the voter has a place to vote in secrecy," Mr. Stonestreet said.

For younger voters, who have grown up with technology seamlessly integrated into their lives, election photos and videos are part of their social-media presence. Many users post their choice for president as a sign of pride, and the idea that selfies or live video could be against the law is foreign to them.

Singer Justin Timberlake last week posted a selfie taken while posing with his ballot in Tennessee before finding out that it was prohibited under state law.

The new popularity of live video, which has exploded this year since the launch of Facebook Live in April, opens the door for its use during voting. Facebook, Twitter and Snap Inc.'s Snapchat see Election Day as the kind of major event that live streaming is designed for.

Facebook is "proactively encouraging people to go live on Election Day," a spokeswoman said.

Snapchat has seized on the election by encouraging people to share pictures or videos, "whether it's a campaign button or a selfie from the ballot box," according to a Snapchat spokeswoman.

The social-media companies say it is a user's responsibility to comply with laws prohibiting photography or video of polling places and ballots.

It is unclear if the laws prohibiting photography in polling stations will be applied to live video. States including California, New York and Colorado have been reviewing their selfie bans.

Live video might catch election officials off guard. Mark Zema, who will be supervising a voting precinct this year in Stevenson Ranch, Calif., said he hasn't received any instructions on how to deal with live video streaming on Election Day.

He expects voters to disregard the state law banning photos and video in the polling booth. "Everyone has a smartphone, so what are you going to do?" said Mr. Zema, 61. "You just have to go with it."

Write to Trisha Thadani at Trisha.Thadani@wsj.com and Deepa Seetharaman at Deepa.Seetharaman@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

November 04, 2016 14:40 ET (18:40 GMT)

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