Candidate Party Preference and Ballot Disclaimer
Because voters can vote in the first round for a candidate from any political party, the nonpartisan blanket primary has been compared to the original blanket primary which was used in Washington for nearly 65 years and briefly in California. The blanket primary was ruled unconstitutional in 2000 by the United States Supreme Court in California Democratic Party v. Jones because it required political parties to associate with candidates they did not endorse. The nonpartisan blanket primary disregards party preference in determining the two candidates to advance to the general election, and for that reason has been ruled facially constitutional by the Supreme Court in the 2008 decision Washington State Grange v. Washington State Republican Party.
Chief Justice Roberts concurred in the 2008 decision, "If the ballot is designed in such a manner that no reasonable voter would believe that the candidates listed there are nominees or members of, or otherwise associated with, the parties the candidates claimed to “prefer,” the I–872 primary system would likely pass constitutional muster." Each candidate for partisan office can state a political party that he or she prefers. Ballots also must feature a disclaimer to voters that candidate’s preference does not imply that the candidate is nominated or endorsed by the party, or that the party approves of or associates with that candidate. Ballots with candidate preference are now used statewide in Washington State and California.
Subsequent as applied challenges were struck down by lower courts and on October 1, 2012, the US Supreme Court refused to hear appeals from Washington Libertarian Party and Washington State Democratic Party. Washington Republicans had dropped out of the appeal process earlier.
Read more about this topic: Nonpartisan Blanket Primary
Famous quotes containing the words candidate, party, preference and/or ballot:
“The candidate tells us we are the “backbone of the State,” and we know that it is true, not because we are possessed of certain endowed virtues, but because we are a majority and have the vote.”
—Federal Writers’ Project Of The Wor, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)
“Poetry is not an expression of the party line. It’s that time of night, lying in bed, thinking what you really think, making the private world public, that’s what the poet does.”
—Allen Ginsberg (b. 1926)
“There is nothing more likely to drive a man mad, than the being unable to get rid of the idea of the distinction between right and wrong, and an obstinate, constitutional preference of the true to the agreeable.”
—William Hazlitt (1778–1830)
“Perhaps the fact that I am not a Radical or a believer in the all powerful ballot for women to right her wrongs and that I do not scorn womanly duties, but claim it as a privilege to clean up and sort of supervise the room and sew things, etc., is winning me stronger allies than anything else.”
—Ellen Henrietta Swallow Richards (1842–1911)