Buckley v. American Constitutional Law Foundation, Inc., 525 U.S. 182, 16 (1999)

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Cite as: 525 U. S. 182 (1999)

Opinion of the Court

ACLF did not challenge Colorado's right to require that all circulators be residents, a requirement that, the Tenth Circuit said, "more precisely achieved" the State's subpoena service objective. 120 F. 3d, at 1100. Nor was any eligible-to-vote qualification in contest in this lawsuit. Colorado maintains that it is more difficult to determine who is a state resident than it is to determine who is a registered voter. See Tr. of Oral Arg. 10, 14. The force of that argument is diminished, however, by the affidavit attesting to residence that each circulator must submit with each petition section.

In sum, assuming that a residence requirement would be upheld as a needful integrity-policing measure—a question we, like the Tenth Circuit, see 120 F. 3d, at 1100, have no occasion to decide because the parties have not placed the matter of residence at issue—the added registration requirement is not warranted. That requirement cuts down the number of message carriers in the ballot-access arena without impelling cause.

IV

Colorado enacted the provision requiring initiative-petition circulators to wear identification badges in 1993, five years after our decision in Meyer. 1993 Colo. Sess. Laws, ch. 183, § 1.18 The Tenth Circuit held the badge requirement invalid insofar as it requires circulators to display their names. See 120 F. 3d, at 1104. The Court of Appeals did not rule on the constitutionality of other elements of the badge provision, namely, the "requirements that the badge disclose whether the circulator is paid or a volunteer, and if paid, by whom." Ibid. Nor do we.

Evidence presented to the District Court, that court found, "demonstrated that compelling circulators to wear iden-18 Colorado does not require identification badges for persons who gather signatures to place candidates on the ballot. See generally Colo. Rev. Stat. § 1-4-905 (1998) (regulations governing candidate-petition circulators).

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