# Illinois State Board of Elections v. Socialist Workers Party

> Supreme Court of the United States · February 22, 1979 · 440 U.S. 173

URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9427463

## Case

- **Full name:** ILLINOIS STATE BOARD OF ELECTIONS v. SOCIALIST WORKERS PARTY Et Al.
- **Court:** Supreme Court of the United States
- **Decided:** February 22, 1979
- **Citations:** 440 U.S. 173; 99 S. Ct. 983; 59 L. Ed. 2d 230; 1979 U.S. LEXIS 61
- **Precedential status:** Published
- **Opinion:** Concurrence by Rehnquist
- **Judges:** Marshall, Brennan, Stewart, White, Blacicmun, Powell, Stevens, Blackmun, Burger, Rehnquist
- **Cited by:** 733 later opinions in the Frix Law Library

## Citator (automated)

- No negative treatment found by the automated citator. That is not the same as a confirmation that the case is good law; read the citing cases.
- Full citator and citing cases: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9427463

## How later opinions describe it (automated extraction)

- explaining that ballot access restrictions, in particular, burden two fundamental rights: “the right of individuals to associate for the advancement of political beliefs, and the right of qualified voters, regardless of their political persuasion, to cast their votes effectively”
- holding unconstitutional an Illinois statutory requirement that new political parties and independent candidates for elections in po *876 litical subdivisions gather more than the number of signatures required for elections for statewide office
- holding there is no rational reason to require more than 5% signatures in a smaller unit when that number of signatures would exceed 25,000 because the state’s interests were satisfied with 25,000 signatures for a statewide race
- holding that state could not justify discrepancy between high signa- ture requirements for election to local office in Chicago--more than 35,000 qualified voters--and lower requirement for statewide office --25,000 voters
- holding that state could not justify discrepancy between high signature requirements for election to local office in Chicago — more than 35,000 qualified voters — and lower requirement for statewide office — 25,000 voters

## Opinion text

Mr. Justice Rehnquist,
concurring in the judgment.
I concur in the judgment of the Court, but I cannot join its opinion: It employs an elaborate analysis where a very simple one would suffice. The disparity between the state and city signature requirements does not make sense, and this Court is intimately familiar with the reasons why.
In 1968, Illinois had a coherent set of petition requirements for obtaining a place on the ballot. In order to appear on the ballot in a county or city election, it was necessary for independent candidates and new political parties to obtain voter signatures equal in number to 5% of the voters who voted in the political subdivision at the last general election. Requirements for statewide office put greater emphasis on geographical balance: Independent candidates and new political parties needed 25,000 signatures, and at least 200 signatures had to be obtained from each of 50 counties within the State. Thus, a candidate for statewide office at that time could get on the ballot with fewer signatures than a candidate for office in Cook County, but he. was also subject to special restrictions. It was reasonable for Illinois to conclude that this scheme best vindicated its interest in “protect [ing] the integrity of its political processes from frivolous or fraudulent candidacies.” Bullock v. Carter, 405 U. S. 134, 145 (1972). Cook County is not Illinois, and all the State asked was that candidates and political parties interested in statewide office produce this minimal evidence of statewide support.
In 1969, this Court held that the 200 voters per county requirement violated the Equal Protection Clause because dif *191 ferent counties had different populations. Moore v. Ogilvie, 394 U. S. 814 (1969). That decision led to a holding by the Seventh Circuit that the statute, as amended by the legislature after Moore to place a 13,000-signature limit on new-political party signatures from any one county, was likewise a denial of equal protection. Communist Party of Illinois v. State Board of Elections, 518 F. 2d 517 (CA7), cert. denied, 423 U. S. 986 (1975).
The courts having knocked out key panels in an otherwise symmetrical mosaic, it is not surprising that little sense can be made of what is left. Given this history, I cannot subscribe to my Brother Stevens’ alternative characterization of Illinois’ problem as “a malfunction of the legislative process.” The legislature enacted a comprehensive Election Code, and amended it once in response to a decision of this Court. The attorneys for the State Board of Elections are now placed in the position of having to defend a law which is but a truncated version of the original enactment.
All of this explains the disparate treatment of statewide and Chicago candidates; it does not justify it under any rational-basis test, and appellant has scarcely made any effort to do so before this Court. In the light of this history, and without engaging in any elaborate analysis which pretends that we are dealing with the considered product of a legislature, I would hold that the disparate treatment bears no rational relationship to any state interest.

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Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9427463. Public record. Not legal advice.