Voter Told Anti-Trump Shirt Wasn't Permitted Gets Creative

As "get out the vote" campaigns continue around the US in advance of the November election, we can rest easy knowing there's at least one American who will do whatever it takes to submit her ballot. The story comes by way of Paul Scafidi, the town moderator for Exeter, NH, per the Portsmouth Herald. He says a woman showed up to the polls on Tuesday to vote in the state's primary wearing a T-shirt that featured the images of President Trump and the late Sen. John McCain, along with the caption, "McCain Hero, Trump Zero." Scafidi says he approached the woman—said to be around 60, the Union Leader reports—and told her that T-shirts with images of political candidates are a form of electioneering, and that she couldn't vote while wearing one. Another person at the polls was wearing a T-shirt with an American flag on it, and Scafidi says the woman became irritated that voter got to vote.

"She asked, 'Why her and not me?'" Scafidi says, but he stayed firm. "That's my opinion, and that was my call as the moderator." Then, per Scafidi: "She said, 'You want me to take my shirt off? That's what you want?" Scafidi says that as he began to respond, she quickly stripped her shirt off entirely in front of him and went into the voting booth topless. Scafidi—who notes there were about 15 voters present at the time—says he could've had the woman removed under state public-indecency laws. Instead, he chose to simply let her have her bare-breasted vote. She put her shirt back on after she'd cast her ballot, and she did keep her face mask on the entire time, per KIRO 7. "We had more important things to worry about," Scafidi says. "We had to get 2,000 people to vote safely." (More strange stuff stories.)