On December 13, Tennessee filed this brief in Darnell v Hargett, 24-5856. This is the Libertarian Party lawsuit against the Tennessee procedure for a political party to qualify for the ballot, which is so difficult, it has not been used successfully since 1968 when the American Party and George Wallace qualified.
The state’s brief does not discuss the harm done to voters by the state’s policy. Because Tennessee has easy independent candidate procedures, minor parties always use those. But in Tennessee, candidates who use the independent procedure cannot have a partisan label on the ballot next to their names, other than the word “independent.” So the voters aren’t able to know which party the various candidates represent, unless they have the information from some source other than the ballot. Courts have been unanimous that voter confusion is an evil that should be avoided if at all possible.
1868 14-1 equal
1954 Brown v Bd of Education separate is not equal
too many moron ballot access so-called lawyers/judges to count
I wouldn’t be surprised if this court makes an exception to the voter confusion avoidance standard this time given that this specific confusion harms minor parties, and the Democratic and Republican Party controlled courts often go out of their way to harm minor parties and Independents regardless of what the Constitution states our rights are supposed to consist of.
Didn’t the No Labels Party successfully complete this petition requirement in Tennessee? I know they did not run any candidates but I thought they completed this petition.