As noted previously, after the Alaska voters passed a top-four system in November 2020, the Alaskan Independence Party, and Libertarian activist Scott Kohlhaas filed a lawsuit in state court to overturn the initiative. They did so based on a precedent from the Alaska Supreme Court that parties have strong freedom of association rights under the state constitution, and that it violates those rights to print party labels next to the name of candidates, even though the particular parties might not approve of those candidates and would never have nominated them.
The state trial court upheld the top-four initiative. Afterwards, the supporters of top-four asked the trial court to order the plaintiffs to pay approximately $50,000 in attorney fees to the top-four attorneys.
On October 4, the state trial court declined to order any payment of attorney fees from the plaintiffs. Here is the four-page opinion.
In 2012, top-two supporters in California won a state trial court order that plaintiffs (in a lawsuit against two particular characteristics of top-two) must pay attorneys fees to attorneys for top-two supporters. The order was for approximately $250,000.
These two incidents reveal that supporters of top-two, top-four, and similar plans are hostile to their very core to minor parties and their activists.