independent party of florida versus secretary of state mr cruden yes your honor thank you very much daniel choi appearing for the independent party of florida and the party for socialism directing us our attention to burn backs and th circuit case i i believe that we do have standing and burn back can be distinguished on a couple of key facts the dissent relies on cases centered on the claimed a violation of a fundamental right to vote and then it goes on to point out that the initiative petition process established by the state is not a fundamental right but rather a non fundamental state constitutional change needed ten percent of the signatures and they did have to be distributed among at least forty percent of the counties and he was arguing that there it seemed to me that your case is pretty different because florida a law that required minor parties to submit a petition signed by three percent of registered voters to access the ballot in statewide elections but the new law the law that currently applies makes it easier for minor parties to gain access to the ballot because they can qualify under either satisfying a one percent signature requirement  here in the face of that controlling precedent well i well i just disagree with in one sense because most most minor parties in the in the state are affiliated with a national party that is recognized by the f e c as a as a national committee the problem with that is that in order there's no correlation of support within florida to show that those parties have the sufficient motive some of support in florida and i haven't come across any of the proper but that is the i mean states have less of an interest to they not in the ballot access requirements for presidential elections the supreme court has said that those elections implicate a unique national interest because they are decided by the voters from the entire nation so recognizing that has as made it easier  recognizing there's and that there should be an additional method for ballot access for minor parties whose presidential candidates have national support yeah but i still this is a florida election to elect florida ballot access or florida electors and you know just because someone might have a substantial support on the west coast doesn't mean that they're furthering the state interest in reducing  ballot confusion by putting someone on the ballot who may not have any support in florida that's why we don't see any cases out there that where the state before today has  relied on national support for florida ballot and that's the that's the issue that we have these florida minor parties that are affiliated and and have a he discussed how the getting f e c support is not necessarily have any straight correlation to showing support in florida classifies people in such a way that they receive different treatment under the law the degree of scrutiny the court applies depends on the basis of the classification and so if a court if a law treats people differently on the basis of race or the crux of the argument is that even though they have less of an interest in national act elections that statement was put in there to make it more difficult for the states to keep people off the ballot and in this situation and they've made it easier well they've made it easier only if you associate with the right people not not  doesn't your argument tell of another problem and that is the trial court's findings here and here that the trial court made findings after reviewing all the evidence that this is not a severe restrictions specifically the trial court found and i'm looking at going to three hundred and thirty nine of page percent requirement which even despite the population differences meant that you had to require you to collect more signatures than under the current one percent requirement  also agree that the supreme court in genesis has okayed five percent in the past and but when you compare that with the with the various message if you compare the entire  state wide support in order to get on the ballot it's similar to the illinois case where they're recognizing that this is a this is the unique national office of the presidency where national i mean i just i have never seen a case before that i've seen where relying on outside of the state i mean i guess i guess you could if a state passed a law saying well you can get one hundred thousand signatures from around the country let's say to get on the ballot in florida that kind of would just not sit right but but apparently if you can get national support you could pass a law like that i just we haven't ever seen a case where a relying on national support for florida ballot i mean they're electing florida electors here for a national election well i mean i believe it is significant only to the extent that just because they pass a law that allows for national support i believe that reduces  the undermines the stated interest to show a modicum of florida support in order to get on the ballot and that statement and anderson was designed to ensure that more people got on the ballot but it certainly does a lot more well i mean our clients tried to get on the ballot using a certification method in two thousand and sixteen and they were denied and and  but why is it that you have a party that is able to jump through the hoops of going through all the regulation and having a convention and doing all those things show that this is not just three guys in the basement deciding to run for president the reason is if i mean it is born out in the declaration of our expert richard winger as document nine dashed one where he sometimes it's going to be that that there are independent parties not affiliated that are more popular than those that are but why can't the state as a race and does the andersen verdict on a non severe restriction require that kind of narrow tailoring that you're saying is required no i but i don't believe that you know if it doesn't it doesn't measure and it comes back to the it doesn't measure there's no correlation to the been to come from the relevant facts and in this one unique action the presidential election that electorate is outside of florida's borders in addition to that and that's why florida has chosen to respect whatever that national fifty thousand signatures for the state of florida which requires all sorts of african time to do the standard is a national standard and as i understand it every one of our cases that is evaluated the signature requirements as something not in the presidential what i'm confused about is and i want to go back to where i started with you which is if the law is under andersen that the state interest is significantly less in the presidential elections and the one percent threshold is the same threshold that the state uses for a state presidential election and a one percent threshold i'm sorry in a presidential election in the one percent threshold in the state election but your interest and in the confusion of the ballot of whatever your interest in the presidential election is lesser than your interest in the state election then and judge look if i'm getting you wrong please just correct me but my understanding of this question is how does that happen we take what happened in prior state a lack sions and apply them to the federal election and specifically with regard to florida doesn't the fact that one percent is required yes that's the question thank you and the two avenues are not mutually exclusive so we're not in a situation where we just have a one percent threshold to get on the presidential ballot we have both avenues that are available and so for no interest i mean after all the president of the united states is the president for florida but it recognizes that it has a lesser interest when it comes to presidential elections and provide this additional method that is based on national support when you say that i agree completely with that the state's interest is and nothing in a national election we still have the ability to require some showing of the mind some of the port and we done that by providing two alternate avenues to support the proposition the courts have consistently how that just that intention to gain access is sufficient for standing but when you look closer at the cases that are cited none of them actually stand for that proposition and i'll give you an example that the defense i agree party of tennessee versus hargus and the dissent and parents that how the plaintiffs have standing to pursue ballot access claims despite not complying with the signature gathering requirement but the court and target expressly recognize that quote the constitution party has tried but failed to collect the requisite number of signatures unquote that that five  rural counties greater weight than signatures but the problem was he had never even attempted to collect a single sick signature for a voter initiative and had no definite plans to do so in the future so there was really no imminent risk on the equally valuable under the signature distribution requirement which is really different from candidate is should be enough for standing because the bar is to be a minor party in florida that would mean that any group of three electors for a minor party can just state that they want x candidate on the ballot as president the access the ballot access statute in that case the libertarian party had collected about a one thousand the independent party had collected about two hundred and fifty eight dollars william which was an individual collective fifty six dollars mr robinson another individual but the seven hundred there's no standing there's not a case of controversy that we're supposed to be deciding so it's not an option to just allow that party to trail along with there's actually no standing so clearly the court justice douglas's in his dissent pointed out that the two plaintiffs in that case neither the american independent party nor the socialist labor party made an effort to comply with all high was election laws and yet the sentence squawk at the fact that  that there were any standing issues and in fact the made the majority opinion at page twenty eight after mentioning that the parties conceded that they couldn't satisfy the signature requirements  between if there is eleven percent the one percent requirement for state election versus one person acquirement for a presidential election shall would you determine what the appropriate ratio should be whether it's less than one percent versus one percent versus state translates to how much percent in a presidential election i understand the question i haven't thought about this before this oral argument before mainly because the supreme court has said that five percent is a is enough but it is true that having the same the same requirement  does weigh against the state slightly but but you know you still have to consider the entire collection organizational structure in its context and  and so i you know there is some waiting that goes against the state of that situation but i don't know if in a particular case especially when you're just saying there's one percent enough and that's the only standard or the only statute that you're considering then i'm not sure it's enough to push the you know say that the the state didn't justify it regulation but in this situation we have multiple ways to get on the ballot and i think the various ways implicate association all rights and that's why we believe it's unconstitutional to after they instituted the association requirements that lessen the interest in the signature requirement and i think that's the bigger predicate to undermine the state's interest in a one percent signature requirement in this case ok