In 2017 the Utah legislature passed a bill saying that independent candidates must have this label on the ballot: “This candidate is not affiliated with, or does not qualify to be listed on the ballot as affiliated with a political party.” In 2018 Marsha Holland was the only independent on the November ballot for any federal or state office in Utah. She filed a lawsuit against the law that required that label, after learning that many voters see that label and think it means she was “not qualified”. The case is Holland v Cox, U.S. District Court, 4:18cv-74.

Originally the lawsuit did not have an attorney associated with it, so it has been stalled, but she has now obtained attorneys and therefore the case can proceed. Here is a link to a news story that shows a picture of the ballot. She was a candidate for the legislature in a district that encompassed several counties in southern Utah. Not all counties obeyed the law. Some counties put the label on, but others did not.

In Cook v Gralike, 531 US 510 (2001), the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously struck down a Missouri law that forced some candidates for Congress and legislature to have a ballot label that said they refuse to support a constitutional amendment for congressional term limits. Justice John Paul Stevens, writing for the court, said, “The adverse labels handicap candidates at the most crucial stage in the election process – the instant before the vote is cast…the labels surely place their targets at a political disadvantage to unmarked candidates.” Also, in 1964, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a Louisiana law that said each candidate’s race must be printed on the ballot. Anderson v Martin, 375 US 399.