Source: https://www.pulj.org/the-roundtable/freezing-out-third-parties
Timestamp: 2019-04-22 18:55:28+00:00

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Unfortunately, since the mid-twentieth century, the Democratic and Republican parties have managed to manipulate ballot access requirements and freeze out serious third-party challengers in the process. Federal courts have been largely unresponsive to these developments because judges evaluate ballot access challenges by weighing individual political participation rights against state interests in orderly and stable elections.  This test’s individualistic focus is unideal because (1) vote dilution ballot access claims require an aggregate, not individual, showing of harm and (2) measures that do not harm a single individual but can convey negative expressive values that damage the political process such as racial and partisan gerrymanders should be, and to a certain extent are, actionable.
Burdick v. Takushi and Timmons v. Twin Cities Area New Party demonstrate the parties’ fait accompli.  Burdick involved a disgruntled voter who sued Hawaii because the state’s election code prevented him from casting a write-in ballot in the Democratic Primary or general election. Third party candidates could get on the general election ballot only by (1) entering the Republican or Democratic primary and winning that election or (2) obtaining enough signatures to form an independent political party – which was quite onerous. Additionally, Hawaii voters could only vote in their registered party primary. Because Hawaii was a solidly Democratic state and the write-in ban erected insurmountable barriers to challenging the party, this scheme effectively channeled political dissent within the Democratic Party’s primary. The Court upheld the write-in ban against a constitutional challenge because the state’s interest in preventing members of one party from voting in another party’s primary outweighed any individual interest in submitting a write-in vote.
However, this justification becomes less compelling once one realizes that each branch of Hawaii’s government was controlled by the Democratic Party. Based on this, the state’s justification was actually intended to prevent outsiders from forming coalitions with dissatisfied groups in the Democratic Party and effecting the Party’s candidate and platform selection process. Implicit in the Court’s acceptance of this justification is the idea that the state can prefer policies that favor party stability over dissident engagement – even when the party is well-established and in no danger of displacement.
Political monopolies are potent paralyzers. Compared to their economic counterparts, it can be rather difficult to bust these trusts because most politicians have a vested interest in the status quo. Only the courts can enter this political thicket and recalibrate the system.
 John B. Anderson & Jeffrey Freeman, Taking the First Steps Towards a Multiparty System in the United States, s.p.g. fletcher f. world aff. 73, 74 (1997).
 maurice duverger, political parties: their organization and activity in the modern state 217-218 (1951).
 Samuel Issacharoff and Richard Pildes, “Politics as Markets: Partisan Lockups of the Democratic Process,” 50 Stanford Law Review 643 (1998).
 But see, Tashjian v. Republican Party of Connecticut, 479 U.S. 208 (1986) (involving a party rule permitting independent voters to cast a ballot in a party primary without prior party registration).
 john hart ely, democracy and distrust: a theory of judicial review (1980).
 Crawford v. Marion County Election Board, 553 U.S. 181 (2008).
 Shaw v. Reno, 509 U.S. 630 (1993). But see, Vieth v. Jubelirer, 541 U.S. 267 (2004). The Court recently granted certiorari in a case from the Western District of Wisconsin to re-evaluate Justice Kennedy’s controlling opinion in Vieth. See Gill v. Whitford, 218 F.Supp.3d 837 (W.D. Wisc.), cert. granted, (June 19, 2017) (16-1161).
 Timmons v. Twin Cities Area New Party, 520 U.S. 351 (1997).
 Elrod v. Burns, 427 U.S. 347 (1976).

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