Opinion ID: 1405619
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Important regulatory interests

Text: The State's first interest is in reducing costs in printing the ballots. Sonneman argues that the State's interest in saving money was a negligible and insignificant.00005 of the State's $5,000,000,000 budget during that time. The economic benefit from ending the rotation system was estimated at $64,024 per election cycle. Instead of comparing these savings with the general budget, however, the more relevant comparison lies with the ballot budget, which was $469,026.75 for the 1994 year. The cost savings from eliminating rotational ballots would thus be approximately 13.7% of the ballot budget. The State also advanced an interest in preventing voter confusion. Election officials affied that rotational ballots confused voters, because the actual ballots might differ from the sample ballots distributed. Cf. Tsongas v. Secretary of Commonwealth, 362 Mass. 708, 291 N.E.2d 149, 156 (Mass.1972) (stating in dicta that rotational ballots may reduce[] the utility of the sample ballots ... and even confuse the voter). Sonneman asserts that the State's interest in preventing voter confusion is not legitimate, because the Division of Elections could have alleviated any confusion by explaining to voters that the actual ballots might differ from the sample ballots. We conclude that both of the State's interests are legitimate and important. Economy in government is an important objective and $64,000 is not a de minimis savings. Reducing voter confusion is also an important objective. Since the actual ballots will be identical to the sample ballots, the amendment may help prevent such confusion. These combined interests suffice, in our view, to justify the minimal burden on the right to vote imposed by the statute. We thus hold that AS 15.15.030(6) does not impermissibly burden the right to vote. [8]