Opinion ID: 686429
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Assessing the burden

Text: 36 New York's election system is largely organized at the local level. Elections are conducted not by the state Board but by local boards organized at the county level, and in New York City at the city level. The county boards are required by statute to maintain registration poll records, organized by election districts within the county, which indicate the registered voters in each district. N.Y.Elec.L. Secs. 5-600, 5-602. There was testimony that there are more than 5,600 election districts in New York State. 37 A candidate for statewide office representing a party--a political organization polling 50,000 votes in the prior election--need not collect signatures in support of his or her candidacy. See N.Y.Elec.L. Sec. 6-104. However, an independent who seeks a place on the ballot for statewide office must gather the signatures of 15,000 registered voters, and the petition must indicate each voter's election district, and, where applicable, assembly district and ward. Signatures may be gathered during a 42-day period which, in 1994, extended from July 12 to August 23. 38 A petition filed by an independent body enjoys presumptive validity. N.Y.Elec.L. Sec. 6-154. That is, if no objections to the petition are raised, the candidate will be placed on the ballot. However, any voter is permitted to present objections to the petition under section 6-154. ED, AD and W numbers may be used by both objectors and the board (in statewide elections as in the instant case, the state Board) to verify signatures. 39 Past history suggests that the burden imposed by the ED, AD and W requirement in this scheme does not unreasonably interfere with the right of voters to associate and have candidates of their choice placed on the ballot. Burdick, --- U.S. at ----, 112 S.Ct. at 2064. According to undisputed figures presented by the Board members and the intervenors, three other independent parties gained access to the ballot by petition in 1994. In 1993, three did so, and in 1992 five did so--with the Libertarian Party gaining access in both years. Preceding years indicate similar success rates. 40 The plaintiffs argue that such figures are misleading, because most petitions proceed unchallenged. They represented at oral argument that 24 petitions had been filed by independent bodies since 1982, and the only one challenged had failed to survive. 41 We cannot, however, look to the only challenged petition as our guide. The fact that independent petitions enjoy presumptive validity is not a reason to turn our attention away from successful petitions, as plaintiffs suggest. To the contrary, presumptive validity is a relevant fact in the totality of the scheme. Past history indicates that the advantages of presumptive validity have made the ballot largely accessible to third-party contenders in New York. As evidenced by the myriad of independent bodies that have held a place on New York's ballot--the Libertarian, Communist, Socialist Workers, National Law, New Alliance, Workers World, Independent Progressive Line, Unity, and No Party--the challenged burden is not a hefty impediment to ballot access. 42 We next evaluate the ED, AD, and W requirement in light of precedent. At the outset, we note that the New York legislature in 1992 reduced the number of signatures required for independents from 20,000 to 15,000. N.Y.Elec.L. Sec. 6-142. According to the record, there were more than 8,700,000 registered voters in New York as of April 1994. Therefore, 15,000 represents less than one percent of the registered voters. In Storer v. Brown, supra, the Supreme Court upheld a California requirement that petitioners gather in 24 days 325,000 signatures--representing five percent of the total votes in the preceding election. 415 U.S. at 739, 94 S.Ct. at 1283. In American Party of Texas v. White, 415 U.S. 767, 94 S.Ct. 1296, 39 L.Ed.2d 744 (1974), the Supreme Court upheld Texas's requirement of signatures of one percent of the gubernatorial vote of the preceding election--in that case, 22,000--within 55 days. Id. at 778, 94 S.Ct. at 1304. And as the intervenors point out, if all of the time that plaintiffs allege was needed to process ED, AD, and W numbers was instead spent gathering signatures, then the plaintiffs could have gathered 45,000 signatures. The plaintiffs themselves state that they would need 30,000 signatures to provide a safe margin against challenges. Yet, these figures still represent half of one percent or less of the registered voters of New York. The burden of demonstrating this modicum of support falls well within the constitutional bounds set by Storer. 43 The district court concluded that the burden imposed by the ED, AD, and W requirement was severe. Because of other aspects of New York's electoral scheme (a low signature requirement and the presumptive validity of petitions), the high success rate of independent hopefuls in securing ballot access, and the Supreme Court's upholding of higher burdens, we disagree. We recognize the plaintiffs' evidence that vote canvassers spent 50% to 70% of their time processing these numbers; but that fact alone does not make the burden severe. As the Supreme Court has said, [h]ard work and sacrifice by dedicated volunteers are the lifeblood of any political organization. American Party of Texas, 415 U.S. at 787, 94 S.Ct. at 1309. The question is whether the restriction unreasonably interfere[s] with the effort to place a candidate on the ballot. Burdick, --- U.S. at ----, 112 S.Ct. at 2064. We conclude that the requirement of providing ED, AD, and W numbers places only a slight burden upon the plaintiffs' rights.