Cite as: 504 U. S. 191 (1992)
Stevens, J., dissenting
"display of campaign posters, signs, or other campaign materials." § 2-7-111(b). Bumper stickers on parked cars and lapel buttons on pedestrians are taboo. The notion that such sweeping restrictions on speech are necessary to maintain the freedom to vote and the integrity of the ballot box borders on the absurd.
The evidence introduced at trial to demonstrate the necessity for Tennessee's campaign-free zone was exceptionally thin. Although the State's sole witness explained the need for special restrictions inside the polling place itself, she offered no justification for a ban on political expression outside the polling place.1 On this record it is far from surprising that the Tennessee Supreme Court—which surely is more familiar with the State's electoral practices and traditions than we are—concluded that the 100-foot ban outside the polling place was not justified by regulatory concerns. This conclusion is bolstered by Tennessee law, which indicates that normal police protection is completely adequate to maintain order in the area more than 10 feet from the polling place.2
Perhaps in recognition of the poverty of the record, the plurality—without briefing, or legislative or judicial fact-finding—looks to history to assess whether Tennessee's stat-1 See 802 S. W. 2d 210, 213 (Tenn. 1990) ("The specific testimony of the State's witness about confusion, error, overcrowding, etc. concerned the numbers of persons present in the polling place itself, not the numbers of persons outside the polls").
2 Within the polling place itself, and within 10 feet of its entrance, a prohibition against the presence of nonvoters is justified, in part by the absence of normal police protection. Section 2-7-103(c) provides: "No policeman or other law-enforcement officer may come nearer to the entrance to a polling place than ten feet (10*) or enter the polling place except at the request of the officer of elections or the county election commission or to make an arrest or to vote."
There is, however, no reason to believe that the Tennessee Legislature regarded the normal protection against disruptive conduct outside that 10-foot area as insufficient to guarantee orderly access.
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