Opinion ID: 2595566
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The prohibition on combined ballots places a substantial burden on the Green and Republican Moderate parties' associational rights.

Text: Having concluded that the political parties' associational rights are at stake, we must determine the extent to which the Alaska primary system burdens those rights. By limiting voters to a single primary ballot on which the candidates of only one political party may appear, the prohibition on combined ballots creates a de facto election-day registration requirement. Voters must choose to fully affiliate themselves with a single political party or to forgo completely the opportunity to participate in that political party's primary. This places a substantial restriction on the political party's associational rights. The choice that the state forces a voter to make means that a political party cannot appeal to voters who are unwilling to limit their primary choices to the relatively narrow ideological agenda advanced by any single political party. Neither the Green Party nor the Republican Moderate Party here wished to have its candidates selected only by voters who are willing to choose that particular political party to the exclusion of others. Rather, the political parties sought to have their candidates elected by a broader spectrum of voters  one which includes voters who might otherwise be unwilling to sign on to the entirety of the political party's agenda or slate of candidates but who would have wanted to support some of the political party's candidates. The state's restriction on the spectrum of voters allowed to select a political party's candidates will have a significant effect, not just upon which candidates the political party ultimately nominates, but also on the ideological cast of the nominated candidates. Alaska's election code prevents the political parties themselves from determining who will be allowed to participate in select[ing] a standard bearer who best represents [their] ideologies and preferences. [74] The code therefore substantially restricts the parties' associational rights.