Facebook Judicial Campaigning Blessed

From the Florida Judicial Ethics Advisory Committee

Opinion Number: 2016-13 (Election)¹
Date of Issue: August 19, 2016

May a judicial candidate include the words “Vote for [CANDIDATE’S NAME] on August 30” in the candidate’s personal Facebook profile?

ANSWER: Yes.

A judicial candidate seeking election during the 2016 cycle inquires whether the candidate may include the words “Vote for [CANDIDATE’S NAME] on August 30” or “Please Vote Aug. 30th” in the inquiring candidate’s personal Facebook profile .

The inquiring candidate does not seek to raise funds or solicit publicly stated support for the candidate’s election, which we previously addressed in Fla. JEAC Op. 2010-28 . The candidate seeks only to encourage voters to vote generally, and to cast their ballot for the candidate specifically. In this sense, a Facebook page is no different from a billboard or a television commercial. The heart of the democratic process is candidates stumping for votes. Nothing in Canon 7 prohibits a judicial candidate from asking the electorate to vote for him or her – whether on Facebook, in person, or through the mass media.

At the dawn of the Internet age, we concluded that “nothing in the Code of Judicial Conduct prohibits the use of an Internet web site for campaign purposes. A web site may be used for campaign purposes, consistent with the use of any other type of campaign literature or media advertising.” Fla. JEAC Op. 1999-26. The explosive growth of the Internet in the intervening years has changed our society, but not the Committee’s view that judicial candidates may use a web site to campaign for elections so long as their communications do not otherwise run afoul of the Canons.

(Mike Frisch)