If surveillance cameras located on lampposts, buldings, at road intersections and just about everywhere else didn’t already make us feel like we’re constantly on “Candid Camera,” the news last November of a group videotaping voters as they signed a petition at a Portland polling place brought the intrusion to a new level.

Project Dirigo, a small, private group that says it records out of a desire to safeguard the electoral process in Maine, was in the news after November’s election with many arguing the group’s actions violate the sanctity of the polling place. Besides being annoying, video cameras can record who signed a specific petition, and that could intimidate some from signing or perhaps going to a poll at all, opponents said.

State Sen. Bill Diamond, D-Windham, has submitted a bill that would partially deal with this new development at polling places. Diamond is calling for a buffer zone of 15 feet between any videographer and a voter either at a polling booth or petition station. The bill doesn’t ban a camera crew from a polling place altogether, but it does provide a sense of distance, which we endorse.

The introduction of video cameras anywhere, especially a polling place, is intimidating. Voters expect privacy, made possible by dividers and sometimes a curtain. That’s why it’s called it a secret ballot. The ballot doesn’t identify the voter by name, and while a ballot clerk may help voters feed it into a counting machine, no one reads it. The process, since the founding of the country, has been as close to anonymous as it can be. Video cameras, wielded by a roaming individual who can come up to within inches of a petitioner, clearly violates that sense of privacy. While common decency is as good a reason to ban intrusive videographers, voters need to know there’s no way they can be linked with their ballot.

On the other hand, polling places are public places. Just as we encourage United Nations observers as they monitor foreign elections, the home of the world’s leading democracy shouldn’t be in the business of banning private individuals from observing, to some degree, the electoral process. It’s important that elections, including the physical polling places, be open and transparent.

Maine law prescribes certain access limitations within a polling area, which is defined by some kind of guardrail enclosure – usually some sort of streamer or ribbon sporting patriotic colors. The law only allows a certain number of voters (two more than the number of polling booths) and election officials behind the line. All others, including journalists, must stay outside that area. Why? Because the public’s right to know must be balanced by the voter’s right to privacy. Plus, chaos would ensue if there were no limits, leading to possible calls of illegitimate practices.

Diamond’s compromise bill makes sense. It doesn’t ban the videographers altogether, which we wouldn’t support since the public’s right to know must be upheld, but it provides a buffer for those who might not want video evidence of them signing a petition or filling in a ballot.

Petition drives are far from pure – for example, some drives pay signature seekers – but introducing video cameras in polling places, where many petitioners get the bulk of their signers, puts a damper on the whole citizen-initiated process. Diamond is right to pursue this bill because people have a basic right to sign without a videographer hovering over their shoulder.

And yet, however well meaning, we wonder how effective this bill will be. With town clerks monitoring a thousand things on Election Day, we doubt monitoring a 15-foot buffer will be among their highest concerns.