Illinois State Board Of Elections v. Socialist Workers Party

440 U.S. 173 (1979)

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Nature of the Case

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Facts

New political parties and independent candidates were required to obtain the signatures of 25,000 qualified voters in order to appear on the ballots of a state-wide election in Illinois. The number of signatures required for political subdivisions in the state was 5% of the number of persons who voted in the previous election. This resulted in incongruous results; in the city of Chicago, a new party would need substantially more signatures to get its candidate on the local ballot than it would need for a state election.