Cite as: 504 U. S. 428 (1992)
Opinion of the Court
State's ban on write-in voting imposes only a limited burden on voters' rights to make free choices and to associate politically through the vote.
B
We turn next to the interests asserted by Hawaii to justify the burden imposed by its prohibition of write-in voting. Because we have already concluded that the burden is slight, the State need not establish a compelling interest to tip the constitutional scales in its direction. Here, the State's interests outweigh petitioner's limited interest in waiting until the eleventh hour to choose his preferred candidate.
Hawaii's interest in "avoid[ing] the possibility of unrestrained factionalism at the general election," Munro, supra, at 196, provides adequate justification for its ban on write-in voting in November. The primary election is "an integral part of the entire election process," Storer, 415 U. S., at 735, and the State is within its rights to reserve "[t]he general election ballot . . . for major struggles . . . [and] not a forum for continuing intraparty feuds." Ibid.; Munro, supra, at 196, 199. The prohibition on write-in voting is a legitimate means of averting divisive sore-loser candidacies. Hawaii further promotes the two-stage, primary-general election process of winnowing out candidates, see Storer, supra, at 735, by permitting the unopposed victors in certain primaries to be designated officeholders. See Haw. Rev. Stat. §§ 12-41, 12-42 (1985). This focuses the attention of voters upon contested races in the general election. This would not be possible, absent the write-in voting ban.
Hawaii also asserts that its ban on write-in voting at the primary stage is necessary to guard against "party raiding." Tashjian, 479 U. S., at 219. Party raiding is generally defined as "the organized switching of blocs of voters from one party to another in order to manipulate the outcome of the other party's primary election." Anderson, 460 U. S., at 789, n. 9. Petitioner suggests that, because Hawaii conducts an open primary, this is not a cognizable interest. We dis-
439
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