On July 30, Theo Milonopoulos filed a federal lawsuit against California’s ban on write-in votes in the general election for Congress and partisan state office. Central district, 2:14cv-5973.

Milonopoulos filed as a declared write-in for U.S. House, 33rd district, for the June 2014 primary, but because his filing was a last-minute decision, he did not have time to campaign for write-in votes, and the Statement of Votes credits him with only one write-in at the primary. He is a registered independent. Here is his web page.

In 1992, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 6-3 that if states have easy ballot access, they need not provide write-in space on any ballots. The case, Burdick v Takushi, was from Hawaii, which has never allowed write-in voting in any type of election, general, primary, or non-partisan. The decision, by Justice Byron White, said the ban is justified by Hawaii’s need for stability. This seemed to be an absurd conclusion, given that 45 states permitted write-in votes in general elections, and there was absolutely no evidence that those 45 states suffered from instability. Justice White wrote all of the U.S. Supreme Court decisions from 1972 through 1993 that upheld restrictive ballot access laws, and he always cited “stability” (without defining it) in his decisions.

Here is a newspaper story about the lawsuit. Thanks to Jack Dean for that link. UPDATE: here is a Washington Post story about the case.