By FindLaw Staff | Legally reviewed by Laura Temme, Esq. | Last reviewed July 29, 2022
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The Fourteenth Amendment contains the Equal Protection clause, a landmark part of the foundation for why all citizens are guaranteed due process and equal treatment under the laws of the land. Since voting is considered to be one of the country's most essential freedoms, legal complications can arise when some individuals' right to vote is called into question.
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Section 1:
“All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."
United States Library of Congress, The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation
Although, of course, the denial of the franchise on the basis of race or color violates the Fifteenth Amendment and a series of implementing statutes enacted by Congress,1 the administration of election statutes so as to treat white and black voters or candidates differently can constitute a denial of equal protection as well.2 Additionally, cases of gerrymandering of electoral districts and the creation or maintenance of electoral practices that dilute and weaken black and other minority voting strength is subject to Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendment and statutory attack.3
The States have long been held to have broad powers to determine the conditions under which the right of suffrage may be exercised, absent of course the discrimination which the Constitution condemns.4 The Constitution provides that the qualifications of electors in congressional elections are to be determined by reference to the qualifications prescribed in the states for the electors of the most numerous branch of the legislature, and the states are authorized to determine the manner in which presidential electors are selected.5 The second section of the Fourteenth Amendment provides for a proportionate reduction in a state's representation in the House when it denies the franchise to its qualified male citizens6 and specific discriminations on the basis of race, sex, and age are addressed in other Amendments. We do not suggest that any standards which a State desires to adopt may be required of voters. But there is wide scope for exercise of its jurisdiction. Residence requirements, age, previous criminal record are obvious examples indicating factors which a state may take into consideration in determining the qualification of voters. The ability to read and write likewise has some relation to standards designed to promote intelligent use of the ballot.7
The perspective of this 1959 opinion by Justice Douglas has now been revolutionized. Undoubtedly, the right of suffrage is a fundamental matter in a free and democratic society. Especially since the right to exercise the franchise in a free and unimpaired manner is preservative of other basic civil and political rights, any alleged infringement of the rights of citizens to vote must be carefully and meticulously scrutinized.8 Any unjustified discrimination in determining who may participate in political affairs or in the selection of public officials undermines the legitimacy of representative government. Statutes granting the franchise to residents on a selective basis always pose the danger of denying some citizens any effective voice in governmental affairs which substantially affect their lives. Therefore, if a challenged state statute grants the right to vote to some bona fide residents of requisite age and citizenship and denies the franchise to others, the Court must determine whether the exclusions are necessary to promote a compelling state interest.
And, for these reasons, the deference usually given to the judgment of legislators does not extend to decisions concerning which resident citizens may participate in the election of legislators and other public officials. When we are reviewing statutes that deny some residents the right to vote, the general presumption of constitutionality afforded state statutes and the traditional approval given state classifications if the Court can conceive of a 'rational basis' for the distinctions made are not applicable.9 Using this analytical approach, the Court has established a regime of close review of a vast range of state restrictions on the eligibility to vote, on access to the ballot by candidates and parties, and on the weighing of votes cast through the devices of apportionment and districting. Changes in Court membership over the years have led to some relaxation in the application of principles, but even as the Court has drawn back in other areas it has tended to preserve, both doctrinally and in fact, the election cases.10
States may require residency as a qualification to vote, but durational residence laws are unconstitutional unless the State can demonstrate that such laws are necessary to promote a compelling governmental interest.11 The Court applies this exacting test because the right to vote is a fundamental political right, preservative of all rights, and because a durational residence requirement directly impinges on the exercise of a second fundamental personal right, the right to travel.12 The Court indicated that the states have a legitimate and compelling interest in preventing fraud by voters, but that it is impossible to view durational residence requirements as necessary to achieve that state interest.13
However, a 50-day durational residence requirement was sustained in the context of the closing of the registration process 50 days prior to elections and of the mechanics of the state's registration process. The period, the Court found, was necessary to achieve the state's legitimate goals.14
A state that exercised general criminal, taxing, and other jurisdiction over persons on certain federal enclaves within the state, the Court held, could not treat these persons as nonresidents for voting purposes.15 A statute that provided that anyone who entered military service outside the state could not establish voting residence in the state so long as he remained in the military was held to deny to such a person the opportunity such as all non-military persons enjoyed of showing that he had established residence.16 Restricting the suffrage to those persons who had paid a poll tax was invidious discrimination because it introduced a capricious or irrelevant factor of wealth or ability to pay into an area in which it had no place.17 Extending this ruling, the Court held that the eligibility to vote in local school elections may not be limited to persons owning property in the district or who have children in school,18 and denied states the right to restrict the vote to property owners in elections on the issuance of revenue bonds19 or general obligation bonds.20 By contrast, the Court upheld a statute that required voters to present government-issued photo identification in order to vote, as the state had not required voters to pay a tax or a fee to obtain new photo identification. The Court added that, although obtaining a government-issued photo identification is an inconvenience to voters, it surely does not qualify as a substantial burden.21
The Court has also held that, because the activities of a water storage district fell so disproportionately on landowners as a group, a limitation of the franchise in elections for the district's board of directors to landowners, whether resident or not and whether natural persons or not, excluding non-landowning residents and lessees of land, and weighing the votes granted according to assessed valuation of land, comported with equal protection standards.22 Adverting to the reservation in prior local governmental unit election cases23 that some functions of such units might be so specialized as to permit deviation from the usual rules, the Court then proceeded to assess the franchise restrictions according to the traditional standards of equal protection rather than by those of strict scrutiny.24 Also narrowly approached was the issue of the effect of the District's activities, the Court focusing upon the assessments against landowners as the sole means of paying expenses rather than additionally noting the impact upon lessees and non-landowning residents of such functions as flood control. The approach taken in this case seems different to a great degree from that in prior cases and could in the future alter the results in other local government cases. These cases were extended somewhat in Ball v. James,25 a 5-to-4 decision that sustained a system in which voting eligibility was limited to landowners, and votes were allocated to these voters on the basis of the number of acres they owned. The entity was a water reclamation district that stores and delivers water to 236,000 acres of land in the state and subsidizes its water operations by selling electricity to hundreds of thousands of consumers in a nearby metropolitan area. The entity's board of directors was elected through a system in which the eligibility to vote was as described above. The Court thought the entity was a specialized and limited form to which its general franchise rulings did not apply.26
Finding that prevention of raiding—the practice whereby voters in sympathy with one party vote in another's primary election in order to distort that election's results—is a legitimate and valid state goal, as one element in the preservation of the integrity of the electoral process, the Court sustained a state law requiring those voters eligible at that time to register to enroll in the party of their choice at least 30 days before the general election in order to be eligible to vote in the party's next primary election, 8 to 11 months hence. The law did not impose a prohibition upon voting but merely imposed a time deadline for enrollment, the Court held, and it was because of the plaintiffs' voluntary failure to register that they did not meet the deadline.27 But a law that prohibited a person from voting in the primary election of a political party if he had voted in the primary election of any other party within the preceding 23 months was subjected to strict scrutiny and was voided because it constituted a severe restriction upon a voter's right to associate with the party of his choice by requiring him to forgo participation in at least one primary election in order to change parties.28 A less restrictive closed primary system was also invalidated, the Court finding insufficient justification for a state's preventing a political party from allowing independents to vote in its primary.29
It must not be forgotten, however, that it is only when a state extends the franchise to some and denies it to others that a right to vote arises and is protected by the Equal Protection Clause. If a state chooses to fill an office by means other than through an election, neither the Equal Protection Clause nor any other constitutional provision prevents it from doing so. Thus, in Rodriguez v. Popular Democratic Party,30 the Court unanimously sustained a Puerto Rico statute that authorized the political party to which an incumbent legislator belonged to designate his successor in office until the next general election upon his death or resignation. Neither the fact that the seat was filled by appointment nor the fact that the appointment was by the party, rather than by the governor or some other official, raised a constitutional question.
The right of unconvicted jail inmates and convicted misdemeanants (who typically are under no disability) to vote by absentee ballot remains unsettled. In an early case applying rational basis scrutiny, the Court held that the failure of a state to provide for absentee balloting by unconvicted jail inmates, when absentee ballots were available to other classes of voters, did not deny equal protection when it was not shown that the inmates could not vote in any other way.31 Subsequently, the Court held unconstitutional a statute denying absentee registration and voting rights to persons confined awaiting trial or serving misdemeanor sentences, but it is unclear whether the basis was the fact that persons confined in jails outside the county of their residences could register and vote absentee while those confined in the counties of their residences could not, or whether the statute's jumbled distinctions among categories of qualified voters on no rational standard made it wholly arbitrary.32
The Equal Protection Clause applies to state specification of qualifications for elective and appointive office. Although one may have no right to be elected or appointed to an office, all persons do have a federal constitutional right to be considered for public service without the burden of invidiously discriminatory disqualification. The State may not deny to some the privilege of holding public office that it extends to others on the basis of distinctions that violate federal constitutional guarantees.33 In Bullock v. Carter,34 the Court used a somewhat modified form of the strict test in passing upon a filing fee system for primary election candidates that imposed the cost of the election wholly on the candidates and that made no alternative provision for candidates unable to pay the fees; the reason for application of the standard, however, was that the fee system deprived some classes of voters of the opportunity to vote for certain candidates and it worked its classifications along lines of wealth. The system itself was voided because it was not reasonably connected with the state's interest in regulating the ballot and did not serve that interest and because the cost of the election could be met out of the state treasury, thus avoiding the discrimination.35
Recognizing the state interest in maintaining a ballot of reasonable length in order to promote rational voter choice, the Court observed nonetheless that filing fees alone do not test the genuineness of a candidacy or the extent of voter support for an aspirant. Therefore, effectuation of the legitimate state interest must be achieved by means that do not unfairly or unnecessarily burden the party's or the candidate's important interest in the continued availability of political opportunity. The interests involved are not merely those of parties or individual candidates; the voters can assert their preferences only through candidates or parties or both and it is this broad interest that must be weighed in the balance. The process of qualifying candidates for a place on the ballot may not constitutionally be measured solely in dollars.36 In the absence of reasonable alternative means of ballot access, the Court held, a state may not disqualify an indigent candidate unable to pay filing fees.37
In Clements v. Fashing,38 the Court sustained two provisions of state law, one that barred certain officeholders from seeking election to the legislature during the term of office for which they had been elected or appointed, but that did not reach other officeholders whose terms of office expired with the legislators' terms and did not bar legislators from seeking other offices during their terms, and the other that automatically terminated the terms of certain officeholders who announced for election to other offices, but that did not apply to other officeholders who could run for another office while continuing to serve. The Court was splintered in such a way, however, that it is not possible to derive a principle from the decision applicable to other fact situations.
In Williams v. Rhodes,39 a complex statutory structure that had the effect of keeping off the ballot all but the candidates of the two major parties was struck down under the strict test because it deprived the voters of the opportunity of voting for independent and third-party candidates and because it seriously impeded the exercise of the right to associate for political purposes. Similarly, a requirement that an independent candidate for office in order to obtain a ballot position must obtain 25,000 signatures, including 200 signatures from each of at least 50 of the state's 102 counties, was held to discriminate against the political rights of the inhabitants of the most populous counties, when it was shown that 93.4% of the registered voters lived in the 49 most populous counties.40 But to provide that the candidates of any political organization obtaining 20% or more of the vote in the last gubernatorial or presidential election may obtain a ballot position simply by winning the party's primary election, while requiring candidates of other parties or independent candidates to obtain the signatures of less than five percent of those eligible to vote at the last election for the office sought, is not to discriminate unlawfully, because the state placed no barriers of any sort in the way of obtaining signatures and because write-in votes were also freely permitted.41
Reviewing under the strict test the requirements for qualification of new parties and independent candidates for ballot positions, the Court recognized as valid objectives and compelling interests the protection of the integrity of the nominating and electing process, the promotion of party stability, and the assurance of a modicum of order in regulating the size of the ballot by requiring a showing of some degree of support for independents and new parties before they can get on the ballot.42 [T]o comply with the First and Fourteenth Amendments the State must provide a feasible opportunity for new political organizations and their candidates to appear on the ballot.43 Decision whether or not a state statutory structure affords a feasible opportunity is a matter of degree, very much a matter of 'consider[ing] the facts and circumstances behind the law, the interest which the State claims to be protecting, and the interest of those who are disadvantaged by the classification.'44
Thus, in order to assure that parties seeking ballot space command a significant, measurable quantum of community support, Texas was upheld in treating different parties in ways rationally constructed to achieve this objective. Candidates of parties whose gubernatorial choice polled more than 200,000 votes in the last general election had to be nominated by primary elections and went on the ballot automatically, because the prior vote adequately demonstrated support. Candidates whose parties polled less than 200,000 but more than 2 percent could be nominated in primary elections or in conventions. Candidates of parties not coming within either of the first two categories had to be nominated in conventions and could obtain ballot space only if the notarized list of participants at the conventions totaled at least one percent of the total votes cast for governor in the last preceding general election or, failing this, if in the 55 succeeding days a requisite number of qualified voters signed petitions to bring the total up to one percent of the gubernatorial vote. [W]hat is demanded may not be so excessive or impractical as to be in reality a mere device to always, or almost always, exclude parties with significant support from the ballot, but the Court thought that one percent, or 22,000 signatures in 1972, falls within the outer boundaries of support the State may require.45 Similarly, independent candidates can be required to obtain a certain number of signatures as a condition to obtain ballot space.46 A state may validly require that each voter participate only once in each year's nominating process and it may therefore disqualify any person who votes in a primary election from signing nominating or supporting petitions for independent parties or candidates.47 Equally valid is a state requirement that a candidate for elective office, as an independent or in a regular party, must not have been affiliated with a political party, or with one other than the one of which he seeks its nomination, within one year prior to the primary election at which nominations for the general election are made.48 So too, a state may limit access to the general election ballot to candidates who received at least 1% of the primary votes cast for the particular office.49 But it is impermissible to print the names of the candidates of the two major parties only on the absentee ballots, leaving off independents and other parties.50 Also invalidated was a requirement that independent candidates for President and Vice-President file nominating petitions by March 20 in order to qualify for the November ballot.51
1. See Federal Remedial Legislation, infra.
2. E.g., Hadnott v. Amos, 394 U.S. 358 (1971); Hunter v. Underwood, 471 U.S. 222 (1985) (disenfranchisement for crimes involving moral turpitude adopted for purpose of racial discrimination).
3. E.g., Gomillion v. Lightfoot, 364 U.S. 339 (1960); United Jewish Orgs. v. Carey, 430 U.S. 144 (1977); Rogers v. Lodge, 458 U.S. 613 (1982).
4. Lassiter v. Northampton County Bd. of Elections, 360 U.S. 45, 50–51 (1959).
5. Article I, § 2, cl. 1 (House of Representatives); Seventeenth Amendment (Senators); Article II, § 1, cl. 2 (presidential electors); Article I, § 4, cl. 1 (times, places, and manner of holding elections).
6. Fourteenth Amendment, § 2. Justice Harlan argued that the inclusion of this provision impliedly permitted the states to discriminate with only the prescribed penalty in consequence and that therefore the equal protection clause was wholly inapplicable to state election laws. Reynolds v. Sims, 377 U.S. 533, 589 (1964) (dissenting); Carrington v. Rash, 380 U.S. 89, 97 (1965) (dissenting); Oregon v. Mitchell, 400 U.S. 112, 152 (1970) (concurring and dissenting). Justice Brennan undertook a rebuttal of this position in Oregon v. Mitchell, 400 U.S. at 229, 250 (concurring and dissenting). But see Richardson v. Ramirez, 418 U.S. 24 (1974), where § 2 was relevant in precluding an equal protection challenge.
7. Lassiter v. Northampton County Bd. of Elections, 360 U.S. 45, 51 (1959).
8. Reynolds v. Sims, 377 U.S. 533, 561–62 (1964).
9. Kramer v. Union Free School Dist., 395 U.S. 621, 626–28 (1969). See also Hill v. Stone, 421 U.S. 289, 297 (1975). But cf. Holt Civic Club v. City of Tuscaloosa, 439 U.S. 60 (1978).
10. Thus, in San Antonio School Dist. v. Rodriguez, 411 U.S. 1, 34–35 nn.74 & 78 (1973), a major doctrinal effort to curb the fundamental interest side of the new equal protection, the Court acknowledged that the right to vote did not come within its prescription that rights to be deemed fundamental must be explicitly or implicitly guaranteed in the Constitution. Nonetheless, citizens have a constitutionally protected right to participate in elections, which is protected by the Equal Protection Clause. Dunn v. Blumstein, 405 U.S. 330, 336 (1972). The franchise is the guardian of all other rights. Reynolds v. Sims, 377 U.S. 533, 562 (1964).
11. Dunn v. Blumstein, 405 U.S. 330, 342 (1972) (internal quotation marks omitted, emphasis added by the Court) (striking down a Tennessee statute that imposed a requirement of one year in the state and three months in the county). The Court did not indicate what, if any, shorter duration it would permit, although it noted that, in the Voting Rights Act Amendments of 1970, 84 Stat. 316, 42 U.S.C. § 1973aa–1, Congress outlawed State durational residence requirements for presidential and vice-presidential elections, and prohibited the States from closing registration more than 30 days before Congress prescribed a thirty-day period for purposes of voting in presidential elections. Id. at 344. Note also that it does not matter whether one travels interstate or intrastate. Hadnott v. Amos, 320 F. Supp. 107 (M.D. Ala. 1970), aff'd, 405 U.S. 1035 (1972).
12. 405 U.S. at 336, 338. See also Purcell v. Gonzalez, 549 U.S. 1, 2 (2006) (per curiam) (vacating an injunction against requiring voters to present proof of citizenship when they register to vote and to present identification when they vote on election day, but expressing no opinion on the constitutionality of the requirement).
13. 405 U.S. at 345. Other asserted state interests – knowledgeability of voters, common interests, intelligent voting—were said either not to be served by the requirements or to be impermissible interests.
14. Marston v. Lewis, 410 U.S. 679 (1973). Registration was by volunteer workers who made statistically significant errors requiring corrections by county recorders before certification. Primary elections were held in the fall, thus occupying the time of the recorders, so that a backlog of registrations had to be processed before the election. A period of 50 days rather than 30, the Court thought, was justifiable. However, the same period was upheld for another state on the authority of Marston in the absence of such justification, but it appeared that the plaintiffs had not controverted the state's justifying evidence. Burns v. Fortson, 410 U.S. 686 (1973). Justices Brennan, Douglas, and Marshall dissented in both cases. Id. at 682, 688.
15. Evans v. Cornman, 398 U.S. 419 (1970).
16. Carrington v. Rash, 380 U.S. 89 (1965).
17. Harper v. Virginia Bd. of Elections, 383 U.S. 663 (1966). Justices Black, Harlan, and Stewart dissented. Id. at 670, 680. Poll tax qualifications had previously been upheld in Breedlove v. Suttles, 302 U.S. 277 (1937); and Butler v. Thompson, 341 U.S. 937 (1951).
18. Kramer v. Union Free School Dist., 395 U.S. 621 (1969). The Court assumed without deciding that the franchise in some circumstances could be limited to those primarily interested or primarily affected by the outcome, but found that the restriction permitted some persons with no interest to vote and disqualified others with an interest. Justices Stewart, Black, and Harlan dissented. Id. at 594.
19. Cipriano v. City of Houma, 395 U.S. 701 (1969). Justices Black, Harlan, and Stewart concurred specially. Id. at 707.
20. City of Phoenix v. Kolodziejski, 399 U.S. 204 (1970). Justice Stewart and Chief Justice Burger dissented. Id. at 215. In Hill v. Stone, 421 U.S. 289 (1975), the Court struck down a limitation on the right to vote on a general obligation bond issue to persons who have rendered or listed real, mixed, or personal property for taxation in the election district. It was not a special interest election since a general obligation bond issue is a matter of general interest.
21. Crawford v. Marion County Election Board, 128 S. Ct. 1610, 1621 (2008) (plurality). See Fourteenth Amendment, Voting and Ballot Access, infra.
22. Salyer Land Co. v. Tulare Water Storage Dist., 410 U.S. 719 (1973). See also Associated Enterprises v. Toltec Watershed Improv. Dist., 410 U.S. 743 (1973) (limitation of franchise to property owners in the creation and maintenance of district upheld). Justices Douglas, Brennan, and Marshall dissented in both cases. Id. at 735, 745.
23. 410 U.S. at 727–28.
24. 410 U.S. at 730, 732. Thus, the Court posited reasons that might have moved the legislature to adopt the exclusions.
25. 451 U.S. 355 (1981).
26. The water district cases were distinguished in Quinn v. Millsap, 491 U.S. 95, 109 (1989), the Court holding that a board of freeholders appointed to recommend a reorganization of local government had a mandate far more encompassing than land use issues, as its recommendations affect[ ] all citizens regardless of land ownership.
27. Rosario v. Rockefeller, 410 U.S. 752 (1973). Justices Powell, Douglas, Brennan, and Marshall dissented. Id. at 763.
28. Kusper v. Pontikes, 414 U.S. 51 (1973). Justices Blackmun and Rehnquist dissented. Id. at 61, 65.
29. Tashjian v. Republican Party of Connecticut, 479 U.S. 208 (1986). Although independents were allowed to register in a party on the day before a primary, the state's justifications for protect[ing] the integrity of the Party against the Party itself were deemed insubstantial. Id. at 224.
30. 457 U.S. 1 (1982). See also Fortson v. Morris, 385 U.S. 231 (1966) (legislature could select governor from two candidates having highest number of votes cast when no candidate received majority); Sailors v. Board of Elections, 387 U.S. 105 (1967) (appointment rather than election of county school board); Valenti v. Rockefeller, 292 F. Supp. 851 (S.D.N.Y. 1968) (three-judge court), aff'd, 393 U.S. 405 (1969) (gubernatorial appointment to fill United States Senate vacancy).
31. McDonald v. Board of Election Comm'rs, 394 U.S. 802 (1969). But see Goosby v. Osser, 409 U.S. 512 (1973) (McDonald does not preclude challenge to absolute prohibition on voting).
32. O'Brien v. Skinner, 414 U.S. 524 (1974). See American Party of Texas v. White, 415 U.S. 767, 794–95 (1974).
33. Turner v. Fouche, 396 U.S. 346, 362–63 (1970) (voiding a property qualification for appointment to local school board). See also Chappelle v. Greater Baton Rouge Airport Dist., 431 U.S. 159 (1977) (voiding a qualification for appointment as airport commissioner of ownership of real or personal property that is assessed for taxes in the jurisdiction in which airport is located); Quinn v. Millsap, 491 U.S. 95 (1989) (voiding property ownership requirement for appointment to board authorized to propose reorganization of local government). Cf. Snowden v. Hughes, 321 U.S. 1 (1944).
34. 405 U.S. 134, 142–44 (1972).
35. 405 U.S. at 144–49.
36. Lubin v. Panish, 415 U.S. 709, 716 (1974).
37. Concurring, Justices Blackmun and Rehnquist suggested that a reasonable alternative would be to permit indigents to seek write-in votes without paying a filing fee, 415 U.S. at 722, but the Court indicated this would be inadequate. Id. at 719 n.5.
38. 457 U.S. 957 (1982). A plurality of four contended that save in two circumstances—ballot access classifications based on wealth and ballot access classifications imposing burdens on new or small political parties or independent candidates—limitations on candidate access to the ballot merit only traditional rational basis scrutiny, because candidacy is not a fundamental right. The plurality found both classifications met the standard. Id. at 962–73 (Justices Rehnquist, Powell, O'Connor, and Chief Justice Burger). Justice Stevens concurred, rejecting the plurality's standard, but finding that inasmuch as the disparate treatment was based solely on the state's classification of the different offices involved, and not on the characteristics of the persons who occupy them or seek them, the action did not violate the Equal Protection Clause. Id. at 973. The dissent primarily focused on the First Amendment but asserted that the classifications failed even a rational basis test. Id. at 976 (Justices Brennan, White, Marshall, and Blackmun).
39. 393 U.S. 23 (1968). [T]he totality of the Ohio restrictive laws taken as a whole imposes a burden on voting and associational rights which we hold is an invidious discrimination, in violation of the Equal Protection Clause. Id. at 34. Justices Douglas and Harlan would have relied solely on the First Amendment, id. at 35, 41, and Justices Stewart and White and Chief Justice Warren dissented. Id. at 48, 61, 63.
40. Moore v. Ogilvie, 394 U.S. 814 (1969) (overruling MacDougall v. Green, 335 U.S. 281 (1948)).
41. Jenness v. Fortson, 403 U.S. 431 (1971).
42. Storer v. Brown, 415 U.S. 724 (1974); American Party of Texas v. White, 415 U.S. 767 (1974); Illinois State Bd. of Elections v. Socialist Workers Party, 440 U.S. 173 (1979). See also Indiana Communist Party v. Whitcomb, 414 U.S. 441 (1974) (impermissible to condition ballot access upon a political party's willingness to subscribe to oath that party does not advocate the overthrow of local, state or national government by force or violence, opinion of Court based on First Amendment, four Justices concurring on equal protection grounds).
43. Storer v. Brown, 415 U.S. 724, 746 (1974).
44. 415 U.S. at 730 (quoting Williams v. Rhodes, 393 U.S. 23, 30 (1968)).
45. American Party of Texas v. White, 415 U.S. 767, 783 (1974). In Storer v. Brown, 415 U.S. 724, 738–40 (1974), the Court remanded so that the district court could determine whether the burden imposed on an independent party was too severe, it being required in 24 days in 1972 to gather 325,000 signatures from a pool of qualified voters who had not voted in that year's partisan primary elections. See also Illinois State Bd. of Elections v. Socialist Workers Party, 440 U.S. 173 (1979) (voiding provision that required a larger number of signatures to get on ballot in subdivisions than statewide).
46. American Party of Texas v. White, 415 U.S. 767, 788–91 (1974). The percentages varied with the office but no more than 500 signatures were needed in any event.
47.415 U.S. at 785–87.
48. Storer v. Brown, 415 U.S. 724, 728–37 (1974). Dissenting, Justices Brennan, Douglas and Marshall thought the state interest could be adequately served by a shorter time period than a year before the primary election, which meant in effect 17 months before the general election. Id. at 755.
49. Munro v. Socialist Workers Party, 479 U.S. 189 (1986).
50. American Party of Texas v. White, 415 U.S. 767, 794–95 (1974). Upheld, however, was state financing of the primary election expenses that excluded convention expenses of the small parties. Id. at 791–94. But the major parties had to hold conventions simultaneously with the primary elections the cost of which they had to bear. For consideration of similar contentions in the context of federal financing of presidential elections, see Buckley v. Valeo, 424 U.S. 1, 93–97 (1976).
51. Anderson v. Celebrezze, 460 U.S. 780 (1983). State interests in assuring voter education, treating all candidates equally (candidates participating in a party primary also had to declare candidacy in March), and preserving political stability, were deemed insufficient to justify the substantial impediment to independent candidates and their supporters.
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