Opinion ID: 194744
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Substantial Support

Text: 12 As the Supreme Court repeatedly has held, States have a legitimate interest in protect[ing] the integrity of the electoral process by ensuring that all candidates for nomination make a preliminary showing of substantial support among voters in the relevant electoral districts. Over the years, the Court has articulated the support requirement in various ways, but its broad outlines are clear. See, e.g., Munro, 479 U.S. at 193 (modicum of support among the potential voters for the office); Anderson, 460 U.S. at 788-89 n.9 (preliminary showing of sub- stantial support); American Party of Texas v. White, 415 U.S. 767, 782 (1974) (significant, measurable quantum of community support); Lubin, 415 U.S. at 715 (serious candidates with some prospects of public support); Jenness v. Fortson, 403 U.S. 431, 442 (1971) (significant modicum of support). The support requirement is meant to safeguard the integrity of elections by avoiding overloaded ballots and frivolous candidacies, which diminish victory margins, contribute to the cost of conducting elections, confuse and frustrate voters, increase the need for burdensome runoffs, and may ultimately discourage voter participation in the electoral process. See Illinois State Board of Elections, 440 U.S. at 183-84 (quoting Lubin, 415 U.S. at 715); Bullock, 405 U.S. at 145. A State is permitted to consider a party's primary-election performance as a relevant factor in its measurement of significant support. See, e.g., Munro, 479 U.S. at 196-197 (upholding requirement that minor parties poll 1% of participating electorate in primary election; observing that 13 [t]he primary election . . . is 'an integral part of the entire election process . . . [that] functions to winnow out and finally reject all but the chosen candidates'). The State can properly reserve the general election ballot 'for major struggles.' Id. (quoting Storer, 415 U.S. at 735). The Party argues that its qualification as a political party under the 302 coattail provision was enough to demonstrate substantial support among the Maine electorate. We do not agree. By choosing to qualify under the coattail provision, the Party bypassed the requirement of mustering significant numerical support among eligible voters, rather than demonstrat- ing its capacity to do so. As far as the record shows, the Party has submitted no petitions, enrolled few members, and garnered little support for the candidates who ran under its banner in the 1992 and earlier elections. Indeed, its only significant sponsorship to date has been the endorsement of Andrew Adam, whose 9% showing in the 1990 gubernatorial elections may have suggested an ability to interest independents in Party enrollment, but clearly did not ensure that such support could or would be obtained. In these circumstances, we think the State retained a legitimate interest in ensuring that the Party in fact possessed a minimal level of support among the electorate, as a prerequisite to listing the appellant candidates on the primary and general election ballots.6 6We believe the absence of any prior numerical showing of support distinguishes this case from Tashjian v. Republican Party of Connecticut, 479 U.S. 208 (1986), and Consumer Party v. Davis, 14 Moreover, even if we were to accept the Party's premise that Adam's coattails invested the Party with some similitude of statewide support more would be required. The Supreme Court recently confirmed that a State possesses a separate, and additional, interest in ascertaining that a political party which nominates candidates for office in an electoral subdivision of a larger political unit demonstrate support in the particular electoral subdivision for which the candidate is nominated. See Norman v. Reed, 502 U.S. , 112 S.Ct. 698, 708 (1992) (reject- ing overall showing of support as basis for nominating local candidate; [a] Party [may not] cite its success in [one] district as a sufficient condition for running candidates in the [other]). The Norman requirement makes sound electoral sense: the potential for confusion and frustration when statewide 633 F.Supp. 877 (E.D. Pa. 1986), which the Party cites in its briefs on appeal. In Tashjian, the Supreme Court invalidated a state law prohibiting the participation of independent voters in selecting convention-nominated candidates in a Republican Party primary. But the Republican Party (with 425,695 registered members) already had demonstrated a significant modicum of support among the general voter population, under a legal standard substantially stricter than Maine imposes. See id. at 211 n.2 (citing Conn. Gen. Stat. 9-372(5)(B) (1985)) (major parties, eligible to participate in primaries, must have re-  ceived . . . at least twenty per cent of the whole number of votes cast for all candidates for governor in the preceding election). Clearly, in Tashjian the States retained little compelling interest, prior to the challenged elections, in reevaluating the Republican Party's support. Likewise, in Davis, a district court invalidated changes to Pennsylvania's ballot-access restrictions that had the effect of disqualifying a political party which (unlike the Party here) already had met signature requirements for demonstrating significant support, , under an earlier version of the statute at issue. Although the Davis court did not rely on the Consumer Party's preexisting party status, that fact figures significantly in our evaluation of its precedential weight in the circumstances of this case. 15 election ballots are overloaded with candidacies who lack even a modicum of support among eligible voters poses similar risks in local and district elections. As all appellant candidates sought elective office at the local or district level, rather than statewide,7 the State had a legitimate interest in ensuring a modicum of candidate support among the relevant voter constituencies, over and above any general support which might be imputed to the Party based on Adam's statewide success in 1990.