Court Opinion

ID: 9622265
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 06:14:50.33574+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T14:54:40.757260
License: Public Domain

NEALON, District Judge
(dissenting) :
I respectfully dissent.
In order to obtain a ballot position in Pennsylvania in 1968, a “political body” needed the signatures of only one-half of one percentum of the highest vote cast for any statewide candidate at the last preceding election; all other nominations (not statewide) required 2 per cent of the largest entire vote cast for any officer elected at the last preceding election in the electoral district for which the nomination papers were to be filed. In the 1968 election there were eight parties on the Pennsylvania ballot: Democratic, Republican, American Independent, Peace and Freedom, Constitutional, Socialist Labor, Militant Workers and Youngmen. Of the 4,748,000 Presidential votes cast, 4,728,000 went to only three candidates. Among the remaining five parties on the ballot, the largest vote received was 7,821. Furthermore, Pennsylvania uses voting machines, of which there are 15,000 in use in 40 of the State’s 67 counties, and the remaining counties use paper ballots. The “Shoup” voting machine is used exclu*5sively in Philadelphia, while the “Jamestown” machine is used in other parts of the State. Each machine has space for 9 political parties.
On December 22, 1971, Section 951 was amended and the one-half of one per centum signature requirement was raised to two percentum. This amendment forms the basis for Plaintiffs’ lawsuit.
In Jenness v. Fortson, 403 U.S. 431, 442, 91 S.Ct. 1970, 1976, 29 L.Ed.2d 554 (1971), Mr. Justice Stewart, speaking for the Court, pointed out that “. (t)here is surely an important state interest in requiring some preliminary showing of a significant modicum of support before printing the name of a political organization and its candidates on the ballot — the interest, if no other, in avoiding confusion, deception, and even frustration of the democratic process at the general election.” In light of the trivial showing made by five “political bodies” in the 1968 election, the danger of confusion, deception, and frustration in having a proliferation of parties and candidates on the ballot, and the mechanical and administrative problems posed by the space limitations of voting machines, I think it was entirely reasonable for the Pennsylvania Legislature, in furtherance of this important state interest, to raise the number of required signatures from one-half of one per centum to two per centum.
Pennsylvania’s Election Calendar establishes a complete detailed and logical timetable under which all candidates of a “political party” must be identified and have nominating petitions filed by February 15, 1972, and all candidates of a “political body” must be identified and have nomination papers filed by March 8, 1972. The Primary Election was held April 25, 1972. A petition contesting the nomination of any candidate must be filed by May 15, 1972. Candidates nominated at the Primary or by nomination papers have until August 14, 1972 to withdraw. Substituted nomination certificates must be filed by August 24, 1972. So long as a Spring Primary Election date is prescribed, I see nothing unreasonable in requiring all candidates to identify themselves at approximately the same time and to follow the same calendar.1 The question remains whether the new requirement that 35,624 signatures be obtained in the twenty-one day period between February 16, 1972, and March 8, 1972,2 infringes upon Plaintiffs’ First Amendment rights.3 I am of the opinion that it does not.
It is my position that before the Court decides whether Pennsylvania has demonstrated a “compelling state interest” in’ enacting certain provisions of *6the Election Code, it must initially determine whether Plaintiffs’ First Amendment rights have been violated.4 Certainly, a state cannot be accused of interfering with First Amendment rights by refusing to grant ballot position unqualifiedly to every individual who decides to aspire for high State or Federal office. In Jenness, supra, decided without dissent, the Court stated “(w)e can find in this system [Georgia’s] nothing that abridges the rights of free speech and association secured by the First and Fourteenth Amendments.” By way of comparison, Georgia’s signature requirement of 5% of the total electorate obtained over a period of 180 days, if applied in Pennsylvania, would necessitate securing 270,000 signatures (5% of 5,400,000) at the rate of 1500 per day, as contrasted with the present requirement of 36,000 at the rate of 1700 per day. This would require a Pennsylvania political body to obtain approximately eight times as many signatures at a relatively insignificantly lower rate per day. The 36,000-signature requirement, therefore, represents .67 per cent of the Pennsylvania registered voters, far less than the Georgia 5 per cent requirement.
As in Jenness, supra, independent candidates and members of small or newly formed political organizations in Pennsylvania are wholly free to associate, to proselytize, to speak, to write and to organize campaigns for any school of thought they wish, or they may confine themselves to an appeal for write-in votes. Unlike Georgia where an organization’s candidate must receive 20% or more of the vote at the most recent gubernatorial or presidential election in order to qualify as a “political party”, Pennsylvania requires but 2% of the largest entire vote cast for any elected candidate in the State at large at the last preceding election at which statewide candidates were voted for. Unlike Georgia where a political body must meet the same deadline as that of a candidate filing in a party primary, Pennsylvania allows the filing of a political body’s petition three weeks later than that fixed for candidates filing in a party primary. As pointed out in Williams v. Rhodes, 393 U.S. 23, 89 S.Ct. 5, 21 L. Ed.2d 24 (1968), and reaffirmed in Jenness, supra, we must look to the totality of the Election laws as a whole to determine whether in combination they made it virtually impossible for a new political organization to be placed on the state ballot or whether it places heavy burdens on or effectively suffocates First Amendment rights.5 Offsetting these more generous sections of the Pennsylvania Election Code, Georgia has a later Primary Election date and allows a registered voter to sign as many nominating petitions as he wishes.6 This is probably why we are commanded to view *7the totality of a State’s election laws, as the specific rights and obligations provided therein will vary in each State. To me, the differences between the Georgia and Pennsylvania statutes are insignificant in the totality of the election laws and are balanced out in the final analysis.
'The Court decided in Jenness, supra, that Georgia did not freeze the status quo, imposed no suffocating restrictions whatever upon the free circulation of nominating petitions, and insulated not a single potential voter from the appeal of new political voices within its borders. From this the conclusion was reached that First and Fourteenth Amendment rights were not abridged.7 I would apply the same language to Pennsylvania and would deny relief to Plaintiffs.

. There may very well be an equal protection argument in reverse if Plaintiffs are to be allowed to file not only long after party candidates have filed, but also after the Primary Election is held and party candidates chosen.

. While the signatures must be affixed in the course of the twenty-one days, Pennsylvania has placed no restriction on Plaintiffs’ political activity prior to that time and, indeed, any candidate may solicit promises of signatures for his petition well before the permissible time for actual signatures. See Moore v. Board of Elections for District of Columbia, 319 F. Supp. 437 (D.D.C.1970).

. Plaintiffs’ equal protection argument was not strenuously asserted and, even if it were, it would fall as a similar argument fell in Jenness v. Fortson, 403 U.S. 431, 440, 441, 91 S.Ct. 1970, 29 L.Ed.2d 554 (1971). In Jenness (supra) it was held that Georgia’s request that the candidate of a “political body” must gather the signatures of 5% of the total eligible electorate in order to obtain a place on the General Election ballot was not inherently more burdensome than winning the votes of a majority in a party primary. Similarly, Pennsylvania’s request that a candidate, in order to qualify for the main event of the election contest, i. e., the General Election, must obtain signatures of 2% of the highest vote previously cast for a statewide candidate within a 21-day period is not inherently more burdensome than winning the votes of a majority in a party primary. See also Lyons v. Davoren, 402 F.2d 890 (1st Cir. 1968); cert. denied 393 U.S. 1081, 89 S.Ct. 861, 21 L.Ed.2d 774 (1969).

. It is not altogether clear that the proper standard of review in First Amendment cases is the compelling state interest test. Compare Dennis v. United States, 341 U.S. 494, 71 S.Ct. 857, 95 L.Ed. 1137 (1951); United Public Workers v. Mitchell, 330 U.S. 75, 67 S.Ct. 556, 91 L.Ed. 754 (1947) with NAACP v. Button, 371 U.S. 415, 83 S.Ct. 328, 9 L.Ed.2d 405 (1963); NAACP v. Alabama ex rel. Patterson, 357 U.S. 449, 78 S.Ct. 1163, 2 L.Ed.2d 488 (1958). However, for the purpose of analysis, I will assume that the stricter standard of a compelling justification is applicable. See The Supreme Court, 1968 Term, 83 Harv.L.Rev. 86, 93 (1969). Although First Amendment rights were considered in Jenness, supra, the Court’s opinion makes no reference to a “compelling state interest” but did allude to “an important state interest”.

. The fact that the Communist Party was able to obtain substantially more than the required number of signatures within the twenty-one day period, dilutes any argument of “virtual impossibility” or “effective suffocation”.

. Yet, in my view, this is the wiser of the two legislative provisions. If all signatories were free to sign as many nominating petitions as they desired, it would be entirely possible that the same 36,000 people could nominate an unlimited number of candidates. Pennsylvania has seen fit to eliminate this possibility by allowing an individual to sign but one petition, a provision which is not only fair, but may be required under the one-man, one-vote mandate established in Baker v. Carr, 369 U.S. 186, 82 S.Ct. 691, 7 L.Ed.2d 663 (1962), and its progeny. Cf. Jackson v. Ogilvie, 325 F. *7Supp. 864 (N.D.Ill), aff’d, 403 U.S. 925, 91 S.Ct. 2247, 29 L.Ed.2d 705 (1971).

. See also Jackson v. Ogilvie, 325 F.Supp. 864, supra, aff’d. 403 U.S. 925, 91 S.Ct. 2247, 29 L.Ed.2d 705 (1971); Beller v. Kirk, 328 F.Supp. 485 (S.D.Fla.1970), aff’d. sub nom. Beller v. Askew, 403 U.S. 925, 91 S.Ct. 2248, 29 L.Ed.2d 705 (1971).