Illinois State Board Of Elections v. Socialist Workers Party

440 U.S. 173 (1979)

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.