The Ninth Circuit will hear Arizona Libertarian Party v Bennett, 13-16254, on January 29, 2015. This is the case over Arizona voter registration forms. A few years ago the legislature passed a law saying the two largest parties should be listed with their own checkbox on the voter registration form. But if a voter wants to register into any other party, qualified or not, the voter must write that choice in on a blank line that is only nine-tenths of one inch long.
The U.S. District Court had ruled that this law is not discriminatory and imposes only a “slight” burden on the other ballot-qualified parties. This conclusion ignores the fact that Arizona parties can remain ballot-qualified if they keep their registration up to two-thirds of 1%, which is about 20,000 members. Obviously parties will have more registered members if they are listed on the voter registration form with their own checkbox. The Green Party has never met the registration threshold so it must do a difficult petition drive every four years. The Libertarian and Green Parties are co-plaintiffs.
The Court can sometimes come up with the most ridiculous reasons for denying a simple request of 3rd parties and/or Independents.
SCOTUS has been brain dead about *equal* protection since 1873 — Slaughter-House Cases, 83 U.S. 36 (1873).
Every election is NEW – and has ZERO to do with any prior election – except the number of actual voters in the election areas involved – for NEW ballot access.
Thus – too many SUPER STUPID lawyers and judges to count.
I like the Federal Voting Registration where everyone is treated equally because there’s a blank space where the party/category is written in.
I think all states should use that as a guideline.