Fordham Law Review Publishes Empirical Research Showing 5,000 Signatures is Enough to Avoid Crowded Ballots

Posted on by November 7, 2021

The Fordham Law Review has published Volume 90, number 2. It includes ten papers from its spring 2021 Presidential Election Symposium, and all of them can be read via this link.

One of the papers is by me, and it shows that in all history, no state that required more than 5,000 signatures for all methods to get onto the general election ballot ever had a crowded general election ballot. There are no instances in which such states had more than eight candidates on the ballot (for any office for which only one winner is to be elected), except that there are two instances when New York had nine candidates for a single office, in 1980 and 1996.

Justice John Harlan wrote in Williams v Rhodes in 1968 that eight candidates for a single office on the ballot is not so many as to confuse voters, and no justice ever contradicted that statement, in any decision of the Court.

Comments

Fordham Law Review Publishes Empirical Research Showing 5,000 Signatures is Enough to Avoid Crowded Ballots — 14 Comments

  1. Does anyone that argue ballots should “not be crowded” – whatever measure you use for that – ever applied those same terms to their party’s primary elections?

  2. I would happily make that argument. I believe that Republican primaries should be made less complicated by banning rhinos and requiring a binding pledge of absolute and unquestionable loyalty to President Trump.

  3. I believe that any candidate that wants to run should be on the ballot per signatures or payment. So what if there are 100 candidates on the ballot. Only the two-party system worries about that.

  4. ^ I do like the idea of the British deposit system and if you receive above a certain threshold of votes, you get your deposit back.

  5. Britain requires 10 signatures plus a deposit of 500 pounds. The candidate gets the money back if he or she polls at least 5%. That system works well. The average House of Commons election in Britain has 5 to 7 candidates on the ballot.

  7. ANY detection of Equal in 14-1 Amdt and in 1954 Brown v Bd of Ed ???

    More ballot pages and even election days for *crowded* ballots ???

  8. Thanks Richard for the info. One day we might have a better democratic system to elect candidates and ballot access.

  10. If Harlan’s precedent that 8 candidates is not too many to confuse voters has never been challenged, then Top-X advocates ought to expand to Top-8 primaries, and up to 8 primary winners ought to proceed to the final election, with ranked choice voting.

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