The iPhone is having a rough Election Day

The iPhone had its week last week, when Instagram brought unbelievable but real images of Sandy's destruction to our attention and Twitter acted as a (mostly) reliable news and information source for many people. With power out for many, cell phones helped manycommunicate until their batteries died, or lost connection completely. And leading up to today, the election was all about smartphones. Both candidates, for example, had apps of varying usefulness. But Election Day, however, doesn't want any of that. 

No Instagram Allowed. All those people Instagramming their marked ballots: That is illegal in a lot of places. Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Michigan, Nevada and Texas "expressly prohibit the use of photographic and recording equipment inside polling places," as this chart from the Citizen's Media Law Project explains. And a majority of the states prohibit photos of one's own marked ballot, under some sort of law or another. Wisconsin is telling voters that tweeting or Facebooking or Instagramming a photo is considered a Class I felony. A polling place in North Carolina booted one voter who used his iPhone to get information.