Opinion ID: 1467923
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Filing Deadline

Text: The second provision at issue is the requirement that petitions be filed 90 days before the primary election. Plaintiffs argue that this deadline imposes a severe burden on their speech, association and voting rights and that the state has not shown that the deadline is narrowly tailored to further a compelling interest. In Anderson, the Supreme Court struck down Ohio's March filing deadline for an independent presidential candidate's nomination petition. 460 U.S. at 806, 103 S.Ct. 1564. In evaluating the severity of the burden imposed, the Court observed that the deadline deprived independent candidates of their ability to respond to developments in the course of the campaigns of the major-party candidates. See id. at 791-92, 791 n. 12, 103 S.Ct. 1564. The Court observed that particular independent candidacies, and voter support for those candidacies, sometimes occur as a reaction to the particular nominees of the major parties. See id. It also found that collecting 5,000 signatures far in advance of the general election was difficult, since interest levels were low and volunteers were difficult to recruit. See id. at 792, 103 S.Ct. 1564. The Court concluded that none of the state's asserted interests justified the extent and nature of the burden imposed by the March filing deadline. Id. at 806, 103 S.Ct. 1564. In this case, the district court concluded that Anderson was not controlling. The court reasoned that Arizona's 2004 presidential preference election was held well in advance of the filing deadline, that the major parties' candidates and platforms were well-known, and the level of public interest was high by then. The district court dismissed the significance of the concerns in Anderson because they were not present in the 2004 election. The 2004 election, however, may not have been representative of future elections, where the major party candidates may not be determined so far in advance of the filing deadline. Anderson remains binding Supreme Court authority. We conclude that the concerns expressed in Anderson may well remain significant, and in any event, we are not free to disregard them. The historical evidence of ballot access in Arizona further supports this conclusion. See Libertarian Party, 31 F.3d at 763 (looking to historical experience to support conclusion that ballot-access scheme did not severely burden minor-party candidates' rights). Since 1993, when Arizona changed its filing deadline from 10 days after the primary election to 75 days before the primary election, no independent presidential candidate has appeared on Arizona's ballot. This experience suggests that the regulations impose a severe burden that has impeded ballot access. The state tries to maintain that this record supports the early deadline for presidential candidates, because independent candidates for other offices have gained ballot access. Yet candidates for president are national candidates and thus situated differently from candidates for state offices, or even other federal offices in Arizona; presidential candidates in Arizona are required to file more signatures than candidates for local offices. Evidence regarding independent candidacies for other offices is not particularly persuasive and certainly not conclusive in this case. The state relies upon Libertarian Party. There we upheld a Washington statute requiring minor-party candidates to obtain 200 signatures for statewide offices or 25 signatures for other offices by July 4 of the election year. Libertarian Party, 31 F.3d at 760-61. The case thus involved a comparatively small number of signatures and a date closer to the major parties' conventions. For those reasons we concluded that only a de minimis burden was imposed. See id. at 763. We explained why the restrictions were much less burdensome than those in Anderson. See id. at 762. We pointed out that collecting such a small number of signatures just four to five weeks before the selection of major-party candidates was not particularly difficult. See id. We also deemed it significant that the plaintiffs challenging the regulation had all been able to announce and file on time, and that they could not identify any candidates who had been denied ballot access because of Washington's procedures. Id. at 763. In Anderson, by contrast, where the plaintiff was forced to file petitions in March, five months before the major-party candidates were to be decided, 460 U.S. at 790-91, 103 S.Ct. 1564, and had been unable to get his name on the ballot, id. at 782-83, 103 S.Ct. 1564, the early filing deadline was struck down, id. at 806, 103 S.Ct. 1564. Nader's predicament is like that of the plaintiff in Anderson. Here, the signature requirement is greater and the deadline tighter than in Libertarian Party. Unlike the candidates in Libertarian Party, independent presidential candidates in Arizona have not been able to get on the ballot. The Sixth Circuit's opinion in Libertarian Party of Ohio v. Blackwell, 462 F.3d 579, 590-91 (6th Cir.2006), contains a good discussion of the various circuit court decisions in cases considering and striking down early filing deadlines in state elections. For these reasons we must conclude that the Arizona deadline imposes a severe burden on plaintiffs' rights. Because a severe burden is imposed, strict scrutiny applies to the filing deadline as well. See Anderson, 460 U.S. at 792, 795, 806, 103 S.Ct. 1564. The state next contends that even under strict scrutiny, the filing deadline is constitutional because it is necessary in order for the state to meet its various deadlines for petition challenges, sample ballots, early voting ballots and overseas military personnel, as well as for the layout and printing of ballots. When we examine the timeline, however, together with the relatively small impact of the presidential election on the overall length of Arizona's general-election ballots, we cannot say that the state has justified the early filing deadline. The state asserts that Arizona's general election ballots include over 400 different federal, state, and local elected offices and dozens of local ballot measures. The state contends in effect that it can accommodate all the other offices and initiatives, but not the addition of ten electors for the office of President. This does not appear on its face to be an internally consistent position. The state has not explained when and how it learns of the number of other offices and initiatives that must be placed on the general-election ballot. Presumably, the results of the September primary election would have some effect on the length of the general-election ballot as well, but the state has not documented the process in sufficient detail to determine what effect it would or would not have. The state made the conclusory assertion that it must order the ballot paper by early June to ensure availability, but it has not provided documentation or any other evidence supporting this conclusion. There is thus no satisfactory explanation in the record as to why the state needs the full amount of time between the filing deadline for independent candidates, which in 2004 fell on June 9, and its first statutory deadline of printing a sample ballot 45 days before the general election, which in 2004 fell on September 18, to prepare the ballots for the general election. In light of the state's ability to put together the general-election ballot after the primary in September, and its failure adequately to demonstrate why the petition filing deadline must be so early, the state has on this record failed to show that the deadline is narrowly tailored to further compelling administrative needs.