Court Opinion

ID: 9465439
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 00:46:37.509879+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:39:10.945206
License: Public Domain

SWYGERT, Circuit Judge.
I have the misfortune of finding myself in dissent from the majority opinion. Although there may be sufficient reasons for treating “major” and “minor” political parties differently in terms of getting on the ballot initially, once ballot status has been achieved it is unjustifiably discriminatory to *28give one type preference over the other. This court said as much in Sangmeister v. Woodard, 565 F.2d 460, 468 (7th Cir. 1977). Unfortunately, the majority does not follow this precedent and unsupportably extrapolates from others in reaching an opposite conclusion.
The mandate issued in Sangmeister was clear. We ordered
the defendants to devise a constitutionally permissible ballot placement procedure. In adopting a procedure, the County Clerks should abide by the following guidelines:
1) The procedure adopted must be neutral in character. This court will not accept a procedure that invariably awards the first position on the ballot to the County Clerk’s party, the incumbent’s party (see Mann v. Powell, 333 F.Supp. 1261, 1267 (N.D.Ill.1969) (three judge court)), or the “majority” party.
2) The procedure should take account of all political parties involved, major and/or minor. While we need not decide whether the district court’s order to exclude minor parties from the rotational selection procedure was valid, we recognize that there may be serious questions about its constitutional propriety.
* * * * * *
565 F.2d at 468 (emphasis added). “Neutral” at the least means not favoring one over another, and the clear import of the two guidelines taken together is that this court will not accept a procedure which invariably favors major parties over minor ones. By approving a procedure which prevents a minor or “non-established” party as such from ever attaining the top ballot position, the majority has effectively negated the order of this court in Sangmeister.
The cases invoked by the majority as authority for this negation are inapposite. They do not deal with the issue of ballot position; instead, they are concerned with such topics as qualifications to receive public funding for campaigning, e. g., Buckley v. Valeo, 424 U.S. 1, 96 S.Ct. 612, 46 L.Ed.2d 659 (1976), or requirements for merely getting on the ballot to begin with, e. g., Jenness v. Fortson, 403 U.S. 431, 91 S.Ct. 1970, 29 L.Ed.2d 554 (1971). Although there may be adequate reasons for discriminating between major and minor parties regarding access to public funds or nominating procedures, once the effects of these discriminations have been overcome and a minor party has achieved ballot status, further discrimination based solely on a party’s major or minor status is invidious1 and therefore violative of the Equal Protection Clause.
Apart from the citation to case authority, the majority supports its conclusion by rationalizing that the “quality” of the election is somehow enhanced by a ballot placement procedure justified through considerations of cost, convenience, and a lessening of confusion. But, given the importance in a democratic society of elections which both are and appear to be fair and impartial, it is difficult to see how a procedure which invariably keeps minor parties as such from the advantages of top ballot position can be said to enhance an election’s quality. Certainly the importance of cost and administrative convenience must surrender to constitutional considerations. And the arguments centering on voter confusion tend to prove too much. By focusing on the alleged inability of voters to appreciate the fact that candidates listed in the same vertical column but separated by a number of lines are yet running for the same office, these arguments point out the disadvantages which parties separated by a number of *29lines from the top of the ballot must endure. That, on a given ballot, some parties must be so disadvantaged is unavoidable; there is, after all, only one top spot. It is possible, however, to give each party, whether major or minor, an equal chance to attain that top spot on a given ballot.2 To realize an election procedure of this quality requires a system which takes into account both major and minor parties and which is neutral in character, meaning that it does not invariably favor one classification of party over another. That is the system which this court ordered in Sangmeister, and it is not the system which has been put before us here. Accordingly, I would reverse the decision of the district court with directions once again to follow the dictates outlined in Sangmeister and reiterated here.

. Nor does reference to the Illinois election statute mitigate the discrimination. Like much of the majority’s case authority, the statute discriminates between “established” and “new” political parties with reference to the requirements for eligibility to appear on the ballot. That the particular classifications developed for this purpose were “borrowed” to provide the means of discrimination between the tiers of the proposed placement procedure adds nothing to a discussion of the constitutional propriety of that discriminatory procedure. If anything, it serves to highlight the temptation to justify the instant discrimination by reference to inapposite authority, a temptation to which the majority has succumbed.

. We are informed that in 1976, DuPage County, Illinois, successfully utilized a procedure that gave all parties which had achieved ballot status an equal opportunity to be listed at the top of the ballot. The County of Cook and the City of Chicago may well have their own set of local problems, but the success of the 1976 DuPage County procedure does prove that an inclusive, neutral system can be devised. We recognized in Sangmeister that a variety of solutions are possible and in fact stated that the clerks “should feel free to adopt any constitutional procedure . . . 565 F.2d at 468 (emphasis added). But we also ordered that the procedure must be neutral and take account of all political parties, major and minor. Id.