New Hampshire Woman Votes Topless After Being Told Anti-Trump T-shirt Not Allowed

A woman who was told she could not vote in the New Hampshire primaries while wearing a T-shirt with an anti-Trump slogan got around the issue by going into the booth topless.

Exeter Town Moderator Paul Scafidi described how the unidentified woman arrived at the Talbot Gymnasium polls on Tuesday wearing a top with an image of President Donald Trump and the late Senator John McCain along with the words "McCain Hero/Trump Zero."

Scafidi told the woman that she would have to cover up or remove it because she was in violation of state laws that no person attending a polling place can distribute, wear, or post any campaign material.

The woman asked why she couldn't wear the T-shirt, but another woman wearing a shirt with an American flag was allowed.

"I said she was going to have to cover her shirt, and [a shirt] supporting the American flag was not electioneering," Scafidi told the Portsmouth Herald. "That's my opinion, and that was my call as the moderator."

The woman then asked him if he wanted her to take her T-shirt off completely even though she was not wearing anything underneath.

"I said, I'd rather she not, but she took it off so fast, no one had time to react so the whole place just went, 'Woah,' and she walked away, and I let her vote. She could've just gone into the hallway and turned it inside-out."

Scafidi said the incident may have caused more of a commotion if there had been more people voting at the time. Scafidi said there were only around 15 people at the gymnasium and there didn't appear to be any children around.

Exeter Police Chief Stephan Poulin told The Union Leader officers did not get involved as the interaction was brief and "did not interrupt anyone's voting process."

Select Board member Julie Gilman also said there was no need for the police to get involved.

"By the time the interaction occurred there was no action for them to take," Gilman said. "If she wandered around the [polls] you could make the case of public nudity that was inappropriate."

Under New Hampshire laws, a person can be found guilty of indecent exposure or lewdness if the person "fornicates, exposes his or her genitals, or performs any other act of gross lewdness under circumstances which he or she should know will likely cause affront or alarm."