On September 12, Kansas filed this brief in the 10th circuit, in Constitution Party of Kansas v Biggs, 10-4043. The issue is whether there should be a blank line on voter registration forms, to let Kansas voters register as members of parties that aren’t recognized.

The 10th circuit ruled in 1984, in a Colorado case, that states must let voters register into active minor parties that are not ballot-qualified. Because Kansas is in the 10th circuit, one would think Kansas would have little grounds to continue its policy of no write-in line on the voter registration form in the part of the form that asks voters to list party affiliation. Kansas attempts to defend itself by arguing that the Constitution Party lawsuit demands that the state tally voter registrations for every possible group. The Kansas brief won’t grapple with the Constitution Party’s point that the party has been active in Kansas. It placed its presidential nominee on the ballot in 2004 via the independent petition, and in 2008 it placed its presidential nominee on the Kansas ballot by persuading the ballot-qualified Reform Party to nominate him.

The Kansas brief also says Kansas ballot access is “exceedingly low”, and the Constitution Party should simply qualify itself, if it wishes to let voters register as members. The state’s brief is not accurate. Kansas’ petition to qualify a new party, 2% of the last gubernatorial vote, is so difficult, neither the Green Party nor the Natural Law Party has ever qualified in Kansas. Americans Elect qualified as a party in Kansas this year, but before that, no party had successfully qualified since 1998. The only states with a mandatory party petition in excess of 2% are Alabama, Oklahoma, South Dakota, and Tennessee (“mandatory”, as used in the proceeding sentence, means that the group cannot appear on the November ballot with the party name unless it carries out that party petition).

The Kansas brief presents an incomplete list of court precedents. It mentions the Iowa Socialist Party case, in which the Iowa Socialist Party lost a similar case, but it doesn’t mention that when the Green and Libertarian Parties sued Iowa on the same issue, those parties won the case.