A woman has sued the North Carolina Elections Board over laws in the state that prohibit most photography at polling stations after she took selfies with her ballot in march.

Susan Hogarth filed a lawsuit in the U.S. Eastern District Court of North Carolina.

The lawsuit revolves around a letter Hogarth claims she received from North Carolina State Board of Elections, asking her to delete a post she made on X which included a photo of her ballot completed during the primary election in March.

She claims that the letter, and the laws supporting it, are unconstitutional. She has filed a lawsuit against the Board of Elections as well as the Wake County Board of Elections.

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The lawsuit stated that Hogarth, who lives in Wake County, took a ballot selfie on March 5 at her voting booth. She posted the selfie on X and endorsed presidential and gubernatorial Libertarian Party candidates. According to the lawsuit, she did this to “challenge narratives that voters could only vote for major-party candidates.”

According to the lawsuit, Hogarth was sent a letter by a state Board of Elections Investigator two weeks after she posted her post. The investigator asked that she remove it or face misdemeanor charges. Hogarth refused.

Hogarth stated in a press release that it would have been simpler to remove the posting. In a free society you should have the right to display your vote without fear of punishment.

North Carolina law prohibits the photography and videography in polling places of voters unless they are given permission by the “chief judge” of their precinct.

The state elections board claims that one reason for banning ballot photos is to stop them being used as “proof of a voter’s vote in a vote buying scheme.”

The North Carolina State Board of Elections as well as the Wake County Board of Elections have declined to comment about the litigation.

According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, most states have passed legislation allowing ballot selfies and other photographic images.

In some states, like Arizona, it is illegal to take photos within a specified radius from a voting place. Federal judges have struck down laws on ballot photography in other states such as Indiana because they are unconstitutional.

Hogarth and Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression is now trying to do this in North Carolina.

FIRE argues that North Carolina’s laws on ballot photography violate the First Amendment. The complaint states that in order to prove that there are real concerns about vote-buying schemes, the state must show that they outweigh protected speech.

Jeff Zeman is an attorney with FIRE. He said that “Ballot selfies bans turn innocent Americans criminals just for showing how excited they are about their vote, or simply showing they voted.” “That is core political speech protected under the First Amendment.”

According to the lawsuit, the plaintiff wants to stop the enforcement of the law until the general election in November, partly because Hogarth, a Libertarian Party nominee running for a legislative seat, plans to take a selfie again to promote herself.