From Richard Winger at Ballot Access News:
On January 13, U.S. District Court Judge Robert E. Payne upheld the Virginia law that says nominees of the qualified parties should always appear at the top of the ballot, relative to other candidates. Sarvis v Judd, eastern district, 3:14cv-479. The opinion says no evidence is needed, and the state’s motion to dismiss is granted.
The opinion says the state interests in putting the qualified parties first are: (1) to avoid voter confusion; (2) to create a more orderly ballot; (3) to encourage larger parties over a multiplicity of parties. Footnote seven of the opinion says, “The Court takes judicial notice of the fact that the vast majority of voters will choose a candidate from one of the major parties.”
Judge Payne did write that he assumes that candidates listed first on the ballot are advantaged. Generally, when courts uphold discriminatory laws on the order of candidates on the ballot, they say there is no evidence that position on the ballot makes any difference. It is not known if the plaintiffs, Robert Sarvis and the Virginia Libertarian Party, will appeal.
I have no reason to doubt any of that. Legal precedent is a separate question from principle or motive, unfortunately.
William Rehnquist was a dishonest person, as the only biography of him shows. In the Timmons decision, Rehnquist (who wrote the decision) quoted from a political scientist who had been a witness in favor of the New Party and who was in favor of fusion. Rehnquist quoted from the political scientist, Walter Dean Burnham, to make it appear as though Burnham was on Rehnquist’s side.
There are no political science studies that support the idea that society is helped by a policy of government discouragement of people forming new parties.
Rehnquist’s biographer showed that Rehnquist lied in both his confirmation hearings (once for Justice and once for Chief Justice) when he denied trying to suppress black voters in Phoenix in 1964.
In principle, you are correct. As a matter of prevailing legal precedent, as Bob Richard commented on this same article at Ballot Access News:
Why would that be a “state interest”?
Because William Rehnquist said so in the Timmons decision.
The voter confusion/”orderly ballot” justification is utter hogwash, as evidenced by the fact that most states do just fine without such a rule. “Encouraging larger parties” is a valid government interest only in this judge’s mind- not only is at odds with equal protection precedent, it’s also a blatant content-judgement violation of the 1st Amendment. Imagine a law (to riff on a recent Supreme Court case), where churches were only allowed to place outdoor signs, or claim tax-exempt status, if they had more than 100 members. And the government said this was “to encourage larger churches over smaller churches.” They would be laughed out of court. Yet the 1A protects political association and speech just as sweepingly as it does religious freedom.