Sean Hannity tweeted a picture of his completed election ballot (below) on Tuesday before realizing he had broken the law and swiftly pulling the image from his account.
Hannity’s initial tweet was first noticed by ThinkProgress , which pondered in its election liveblog:
“This may be a misdemeanor under New York State elections law which prohibits voters from showing a ballot ‘after it is prepared for voting, to any person so as to reveal the contents.’ “
Sure enough, the squeaky-voiced Fox TV host (who, not amazingly, voted Romney) became aware of his error some hours later, telling listeners of his radio show:
“I learned a big civics lesson today. I took a picture of my vote and I tweeted it out and then I heard it’s not allowed. So I had to – I deleted it – whoops! I didn’t know, I really didn’t, honestly.”
Hannity was far from alone in tweeting his ballot; as the hashtag #ballot shows, thousands flocked to Twitter to share their voting choices. Furthermore, a Pew survey revealed 22 percent of people signaled who they voted for on Facebook or Twitter.
Sean Hannity is not even the only celebrity to tweet his ballot. E! Online reports how Beyoncé and Kim Kardashian also shared pictures of their ballots. The only difference? Their forms were not completed in the images, giving no indication of their election choices.
This technically means Sean Hannity has been outsmarted by Kim Kardashian. It’s not been the best day for the Fox host.
Here’s the tweet that could have landed Sean Hannity in hot water:
