On February 8, the Ninth Circuit heard Soltysik v Padilla, 16-55758. This is the case over the California law that says members of qualified parties may have the name of the party they are registered in on the ballot. But members of unqualified parties must have “party preference: none.” The plaintiff, Mimi Soltysik, is a registered Socialist and when he ran for the legislature in 2014, he wanted to have “party preference: Socialist” on the ballot, but that was not allowed because the Socialist Party is not ballot-qualified.
The hearing lasted 43 minutes. The state argued that if a party is not ballot-qualified, it is not a party. The judges seemed to all feel that this is false. Clearly virtually everyone has heard of the Socialist Party, which is recognized by the Federal Election Commission as one of the eight national committees in the U.S. Here is a link to the audio.
The judges wondered why the state couldn’t change the ballot label to “party preference: no qualified party.” Or they wondered why the state couldn’t put an asterisk next to the name of candidates who are members of unqualified parties, so that Soltysik could have put “party preference: Socialist*”, with the asterisk leading to a note on the ballot saying “* not a qualified party.”
The ACLU attorneys, who argued for Soltysik, pointed out that the California voter registration form asks all voters if they wish to indicate a party preference, and applicants are free to choose a qualified party or an unqualified party as their party preference. Therefore, the “party preference” applies to both types of parties on the voter registration form, yet not on the ballot, so that is contradictory.