Opinion ID: 691362
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: The Constitutionality of the Burdens

Text: 46 The district court concluded that Arkansas's interest in choosing whether it wishes to provide funding for party primaries outweighs the burdens suffered by the Republican Party. Id. at 12. The court apparently refused to hold the Arkansas primary scheme unconstitutional due to its unwillingness to order the state to pay the costs of the required primaries. 5 We cannot agree that the court's reasoning properly disposes of the question before us. By relying on considerations of remedy to preclude a finding of unconstitutionality, the district court turned the analysis upside-down. By analyzing only the party funding requirement in isolation, the district court asked the wrong question and produced the wrong answer. The salient issue before us is not whether Arkansas must pay for the primary elections it requires, but whether its current statutory scheme impermissibly burdens the First and Fourteenth Amendment rights of voters and parties. As we have already accepted the finding of the district court that Arkansas's election code imposes heavy burdens on those rights, we now turn to the question of whether those burdens can be justified on constitutional grounds. 47 The state points out that the Arkansas election code is facially neutral in character, explicitly favoring no particular party; thus, the state argues, it deserves a less stringent standard of review. However, as outlined above, the Supreme Court has held that the strictness of judicial review must correspond to the weight of the burden imposed by the challenged election scheme. Our review of the burdens imposed by Arkansas's primary scheme convinces us that they are sufficiently severe to require the application of strict scrutiny, even under the more flexible Burdick approach. Accordingly, we examine Arkansas's election scheme to determine whether it is  'narrowly drawn to advance a state interest of compelling importance.'  Burdick, 504 U.S. at 434, 112 S.Ct. at 2063 (quoting Norman v. Reed, 502 U.S. 279, 289, 112 S.Ct. 698, 705, 116 L.Ed.2d 711 (1992)). We must not only determine the legitimacy and strength of each of those interests, [we] also must consider the extent to which those interests make it necessary to burden the plaintiff's rights. Anderson, 460 U.S. at 789, 103 S.Ct. at 1570. 48 In defending the laws before us, Arkansas advances four state interests: (1) protecting and preserving the integrity of the nominating process, (2) minimizing voter confusion, (3) protecting the public from frivolous or fraudulent candidates, and (4) maximizing the probability that the winning candidate will have received a majority of the popular vote. As outlined below, each of these interests has been accepted by the Supreme Court as a legitimate state interest in related contexts; however, Arkansas fails to indicate how any of them necessitates the burdens imposed by its dual requirement scheme. 49 First, Arkansas advances its interest in protecting the integrity of the nominating process to justify its dual requirements of mandatory primaries and party funding. We find the state's logic elusive. Certainly, the state has no less an interest in the integrity of its primary system than in that of its general election. As the Court noted in Smith v. Allwright, 321 U.S. at 664, 64 S.Ct. at 765, [w]hen primaries become a part of the machinery for choosing officials, state and national, ... the same tests to determine the character of discrimination or abridgement should be applied to the primary, as are applied to the general election. But, contrary to Arkansas's intimations, electoral integrity does not operate as an all-purpose justification flexible enough to embrace any burden, malleable enough to fit any challenge and strong enough to support any restriction. The Supreme Court has invested integrity with a more specific and limited meaning:A State indisputably has a compelling interest in preserving the integrity of its election process. Toward that end, a State may enact laws that interfere with a party's internal affairs when necessary to ensure that elections are fair and honest. 50 Eu, 489 U.S. at 231, 109 S.Ct. at 1024. In particular, the Supreme Court has upheld restrictions on voter eligibility, including limitations based on residence, Dunn v. Blumstein, 405 U.S. 330, 343-44, 92 S.Ct. 995, 1003-04, 31 L.Ed.2d 274 (1972), citizenship, Kramer v. Union Free School Dist. No. 15, 395 U.S. 621, 625, 89 S.Ct. 1886, 1888-89, 23 L.Ed.2d 583 (1969), and age, Oregon v. Mitchell, 400 U.S. 112, 118, 91 S.Ct. 260, 261-62, 27 L.Ed.2d 272 (1970). The Court has sustained requirements that parties nominate candidates through primaries or conventions, American Party of Texas, 415 U.S. at 779-82, 94 S.Ct. at 1305-07, and that ballot petitions include only the names of voters who did not vote in any primary that year, id. at 785-86, 94 S.Ct. at 1308-09. Reasonable filing fees have been found constitutional, Bullock, 405 U.S. at 145, 92 S.Ct. at 856-57, as have mandatory waiting periods before voters changing party affiliation may vote in a party primary, Rosario v. Rockefeller, 410 U.S. 752, 761, 93 S.Ct. 1245, 1251-52, 36 L.Ed.2d 1 (1973), and disaffiliation requirements that deny ballot access to independent candidates who had been affiliated with any party within a year preceding a given election, Storer, 415 U.S. at 730, 94 S.Ct. at 1279. Clarifying its understanding of election process integrity, the Court has explained that each of these laws made a demonstrable contribution toward ensuring the order and fairness of elections. Eu, 489 U.S. at 232, 109 S.Ct. at 1025. Thus, to serve the goal of electoral integrity, a law must advance the honesty, fairness or orderliness of the process. By contrast, Arkansas has not attempted to explain how its dual requirements are necessary to meet these particular interests. In light of the burdens imposed on the Republican Party and the resulting confusion experienced by its members and adherents, we find that the laws before us produce, if anything, disorder and unfairness. Accordingly, we cannot conclude that sections 7-7-102(a) and 7-3-101(4), in combination, are necessary to advance Arkansas's compelling interest in preserving the integrity of its primary process. 51 Next, Arkansas argues that its primary system acts to minimize voter confusion. See Munro, 479 U.S. at 194-95, 107 S.Ct. at 536-37; Jenness v. Fortson, 403 U.S. 431, 442, 91 S.Ct. 1970, 1976, 29 L.Ed.2d 554 (1971). We detect no way in which the conditioning of ballot access on party financing of primary elections serves to reduce the risk of voter confusion. If anything, the findings of the district court indicate that the small number of Republican polling places increases voter confusion. On primary day a number of voters intending to cast ballots in the Republican primary arrive at the appropriate polling place for the general election, only to be told that the Republican ballot box is located elsewhere, often a considerable distance away. Indeed, some voters even enter the voting booth at Democratic polling places in the erroneous belief that they are Republican. If by minimizing voter confusion Arkansas means to argue that its scheme foster[s] informed and educated expressions of the popular will, Anderson, 460 U.S. at 796, 103 S.Ct. at 1574, this claim also founders upon the shoals of experience. By requiring parties to deplete their pool of contributions to pay for primary elections, Arkansas substantially reduces the amount of party funds available to educate voters about candidates and campaign issues. A State's claim that it is enhancing the ability of its citizenry to make wise decisions by restricting the flow of information to them must be viewed with some skepticism. Anderson, 460 U.S. at 798, 103 S.Ct. at 1575. In light of the combined effects of the dual requirements, we conclude that Arkansas's legitimate interests in preventing voter confusion and providing for educated and responsible voter decisions in no respect 'make it necessary to burden the [Party's] rights.'  Tashjian, 479 U.S. at 221-22, 107 S.Ct. at 552 (quoting Anderson, 460 U.S. at 789, 103 S.Ct. at 1570) (brackets in original). 52 Finally, the state asserts that the combination of sections 7-7-102(a) and 7-3-101(4) is necessary to protect the public from frivolous or fraudulent candidates and to ensure that the eventual victor obtains a majority of the votes cast. See Bullock, 405 U.S. at 145, 92 S.Ct. at 857 ([T]he State understandably and properly seeks to ... assure that the winner is the choice of a majority, or at least a strong plurality.... Moreover, a State has an interest, if not a duty, to protect the integrity of its political processes from frivolous or fraudulent candidacies.). Cf. Munro, 479 U.S. at 194-95, 107 S.Ct. at 536-37. On these points, the state's reasoning is simply impenetrable. In the absence of any guidance from the state, we can divine no link between these interests and the dual requirements. By effectively depressing the number of individuals casting votes in the Republican primary, Arkansas has likely increased, not decreased, the risk that a frivolous or fraudulent candidate could win that party's nomination. While it may be true that, by itself, the requirement that a party hold a primary election to select its nominees is necessary to meet the state's interest in ensuring that the majority's will is reflected in the winner of the election process, see Storer, 415 U.S. at 735, 94 S.Ct. at 1281-82, the state's interest does not necessitate the additional requirement that parties pay for, as well as conduct, primary elections. In combination, Arkansas's dual requirements cannot be justified as necessary to protect the public from frivolous candidates or to ensure that the eventual victors enjoy the majority's support. 53 The fact that no other state imposes the full costs of primary elections on political parties as a condition of ballot access further undermines Arkansas's contention that the dual requirements serve a state interest of compelling importance. Because Arkansas has failed to identify any compelling state interest which necessitates the imposition of such heavy burdens on the associational rights of parties and voters, we conclude that the requirements that parties conduct and pay for primary elections are unconstitutional in combination. 6