Opinion ID: 1232597
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The State Interest in Ensuring Accurate Information During Election Campaigns

Text: ¶ 155 The majority's claim that the state had a compelling interest to ensure accurate information during an election campaign proves equally unpersuasive in this case. ¶ 156 The nature of the Rongstad mailing undermines any claim that the state had an overriding interest in protecting the public from fraudulent and libelous speech. The fact is, even without a court ruling, the mailing backfired. The mailing was so transparently cartoonish and political in nature that it did not hurt Lassa; it helped her. [8] As Bill Berry, a former editor of the Stevens Point Journal, put it, An outsider doesn't trash a local farm girl up here and get away with it. See Bill Berry, Point counterpoint (Aug. 28, 2003), http://www.FightingBob.com. Lassa's own complaint acknowledges that her voting percentage went up in the election immediately following distribution of the mailing, when its impact was fresh. Accordingly, it is difficult to accept the proposition that Rongstad's mailing misled anyone. ¶ 157 What's more, if the mailing did mislead anyone, Lassa had months to respond and set the record straight. Cf. McIntyre, 514 U.S. at 352 n. 16, 115 S.Ct. 1511. In McIntyre the Supreme Court distinguished between the need to prevent fraudulent and libelous speech that occurs in the eleventh-hour before an election and speech that occurs months in advance. Id. Whereas the former affords a candidate no time to respond, the latter gives a candidate adequate time to counter any falsehood. Immediate court action may be necessary to remedy an eleventh-hour attack, but it is less likely to be necessary when the election is several months away.