CCD Seeks Supreme Court Review of Laws That Block Non-Wealthy Candidates and Parties From the Ballot in Texas and Indiana

On March 21, 2025, the Supreme Court will consider whether to accept two cases CCD filed, one in Texas and one in Indiana, which claim these states' ballot access requirements for Independents and Minor Parties are unconstitutional because it costs hundreds of thousands of dollars to comply with them.

The plaintiffs in each case are Independent and Minor Party voters, candidates and political parties who presented uncontested evidence proving no Independent or Minor Party has gathered the huge number of signatures necessary to qualify for the statewide ballot in either state in decades, if ever, without spending substantial funds.

The uncontested evidence also established that the cost of conducting a statewide petition drive in Texas now approaches $1 million or more, while in Indiana the cost is approximately $500,000.

In each case, the lower courts ignored this evidence and upheld both states' requirements -- even though it is undisputed that non-wealthy candidates and parties cannot comply with them.

In the Texas case, the Fifth Circuit ruled that the exorbitant cost of conducting a petition drive is not a "consequential burden" because no plaintiff was actively incurring that cost during the proceedings below.

That is not a valid basis for a court to disregard evidence that a law is unconstitutional.

The Seventh Circuit similarly disregarded the cost of conducting a petition drive in Indiana because it concluded the case is not otherwise "a close one."

But that is not a valid basis for a court to ignore evidence either. It's no different than acquitting a criminal defendant by ignoring evidence of the defendant's guilt.

The prohibitive cost of complying with the Texas and Indiana laws arises not only from the huge number of signatures required -- more than 80,000 in Texas and around 40,000 in Indiana -- but also from the laborious and inefficient petitioning procedures the states require Independents and Minor Parties to follow, which originated in the Middle Ages, and which neither state has updated or improved since adopting them more than 100 years ago.

These procedures are so inefficient and yield so many invalidated signatures that Independents and Minor Parties must exceed each state's requirements by 50 percent to ensure they have enough valid signatures. That means more than 120,000 signatures in Texas and around 60,000 in Indiana.

Such an effort requires so much time, labor and resources that volunteer petition drives cannot succeed at the statewide level. The rare successes have occurred only when professional petitioning firms were hired.

The Texas and Indiana requirements thus measure not how much voter support an Independent or Minor Party has, but how much money they can raise.

The Republicans and Democrats who enacted these laws face no such burdens. In both Texas and Indiana, the Major Party nominees appear on the general election ballot automatically, once they are selected in taxpayer-funded primary elections.

Texas and Indiana have also enacted electronic procedures to facilitate the Major Parties' administration of their primary elections -- despite insisting that Independents and Minor Parties continue to follow inherently burdensome and expensive centuries-old procedures.

In its seminal civil rights era cases striking down poll taxes on voters and mandatory filing fees on candidates, the Supreme Court made clear that states cannot make wealth a condition of participation in their electoral processes.

CCD is asking the Court to accept its Texas and Indiana cases to reaffirm that principle as applied to Independents and Minor Parties.

The Court is scheduled to consider both cases at its March 21, 2025 conference.