232 fy an ‘actual problem’ in need of solving Playboy, 629 U.S. at 822-...(quoting 23, 120 S.Ct. 1878)); see also Asociación de Educación Privada de Puerto Rico, Inc. v. García-Padilla, 490 F.3d 1, 18 (1st Cir.2007) (“We cannot conclude that [the Puerto Rico Department of Consumer Affairs] has a legitimate state interest in fixing a problem it has not shown to exist.”). To satisfy this requirement, the government ordinarily must point to sufficient evidence in the law’s legislative history or in the record before the court to show that the problem exists. See Turner, 512 U.S. at 667, 114 S.Ct. 2445 (explaining that without evidence of an actual problem, “we cannot determine whether the threat [asserted by the government] is real enough” to survive strict scrutiny). “Anecdote and supposition” cannot substitute for evidence of a real problem. Playboy, 529 U.S. at 822, 120 S.Ct. 1878; Consol. Edison Co. of N.Y., Inc. v. Pub. Serv. Comm’n of N.Y., 447 U.S. 530, 543, 100 S.Ct. 2326, 65 L.Ed.2d 319 (1980) (“Mere speculation of harm does not constitute a compelling state interest.”). In the present case, neither the legislative history nor the evidentiary record compiled by the Secretary in defense of this action provide any support for the view that the state has an actual or imminent problem with images of completed 8. I invited both parties to present additional information and have given them every opportunity to come forward with any evidence they have. Both parties agreed that a trial was unnecessary- and that the case should be decided on cross motions for summary judgment. Doc. No. 29 at 2. 9. The degree of deference that must be accorded to legislative judgments in First Amendment cases will vary based on a variety of circumstances. In Turner Broadcasting System, Inc. v. FCC, the Court deferred to Congress’s predictive judgment that the law under review furthered important governmental interests. 520 U.S. 180, 185, 117 ballots being used to facilitate either vote buying or voter coercion. The law’s legislative history contains only a single unsubstantiated third-hand report that vote buying occurred in Goffstown during the 2012 See Legislative History at election. 000064. Although the Secretary was given the opportunity to do so,8 he produced no evidence that either vote buying or voter coercion are current problems in New Hampshire. Plaintiffs, in contrast, have produced undisputed evidence that there have been no vote buying prosecutions and no complaints of vote buying in the state since at least 1976. Exhibit B at 11. More to the point, even though small cameras capable of taking photographic images of ballots have been available for decades and cell phones equipped with digital cameras have been in use for nearly 15 years, the Secretary has failed to identify a single instance anywhere in the United States in which a credible claim has been made that digital or photographic images of completed ballots have been used to facilitate vote buying or voter coercion. Although legislatures are entitled to deference when making predictive judgments,9 deference cannot be blind to the complete absence of evidence when speech restrictions are at issue. Here, the Secretary offers only anecdote and speculation to sustain the law, which is insufficient S.Ct. 1174, 137 L.Ed.2d 369 (1997). In that case, however, the challenged law was a content-neutral restriction on speech, the legislative judgment concerned a complex regulatory regime in an area undergoing rapid technological change, and the proposed law was based on years of testimony and volumes of documentary evidence. Id. at 196, 199, 117 S.Ct. 1174. The law at issue here is very different because it is a content-based restriction on speech, the law does not address a complex regulatory problem, and the legislative judgment is not based on evidence concerning the existence of the alleged problem.