## Facts

- Illinois election law required new political parties and independent candidates seeking statewide office to submit petitions with 25,000 signatures of qualified voters.
- For offices in political subdivisions, Illinois required petitions signed by 5% of the number of persons who voted in the prior election for that office.
- In a 1977 special election for Chicago mayor, the 5% formula required nearly 36,000 signatures, exceeding the statewide 25,000-signature requirement.
- The Socialist Workers Party, its candidate, another new political party, and supporting Chicago voters challenged the higher Chicago requirement as violating the Equal Protection Clause by imposing a heavier burden in a local election than in a statewide election.
- The federal district court enjoined enforcement of the 5% provision insofar as it required more than 25,000 signatures for Chicago mayoral ballot access; the Seventh Circuit affirmed.

## Issues

1. Whether a prior Supreme Court summary affirmance upholding Illinois’s 5% petition requirement precluded this equal protection challenge.
2. Whether Illinois violates the Equal Protection Clause by requiring more than 25,000 signatures for new parties and independent candidates to appear on the ballot for Chicago offices when 25,000 signatures suffice for statewide offices.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court unanimously affirmed the judgment for the challengers.
- The Court held that the earlier summary affirmance did not control because it did not necessarily decide the specific local-versus-statewide disparity issue presented here.
- The Court held that Illinois’s scheme violated equal protection to the extent it required more than 25,000 signatures for ballot access in Chicago.

## Legal Principles

- The binding effect of a Supreme Court summary affirmance extends only to the precise issues presented and necessarily decided; materially different equal protection theories are not foreclosed.
- Ballot-access restrictions that burden political association and effective voting trigger heightened constitutional review; the State must show the restriction is necessary to serve a compelling interest.
- Even when pursuing legitimate election-administration interests, the State may not impose unnecessarily restrictive means; in ballot-access settings, the State must use the least drastic means consistent with its objectives.
- A petition scheme is constitutionally suspect when it makes ballot access more difficult for a local election than for statewide office without an adequate justification, particularly where the State has already deemed the lower statewide threshold sufficient.

## Conclusion

Illinois could not justify requiring substantially more signatures for Chicago ballot access than for statewide office, and the Equal Protection Clause prohibited enforcement of the 5% petition requirement insofar as it demanded more than 25,000 signatures for new parties and independent candidates in Chicago elections.


Illinois State Bd. of Elections v. Socialist Workers Party, 440 U.S. 173 (1979)