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ruling on the use of the HWP name, but held that the entire slate was doomed under § 10-2 by the failure to obtain sufficient suburban-district signatures and, alternatively, the failure to list any judicial candidates. The State Supreme Court held that § 10-5 prohibited petitioners from using the HWP name and that, under § 10-2, the failure to gather enough suburban-district signatures disqualified the entire slate. This Court granted petitioners' application for a stay, permitting them to run in the election. Although no HWP candidates were elected, several received over 5% of the vote, which would qualify the HWP as an "established political party" within all or part of the county in the next election.
Held: 1. The controversy is not moot even though the 1990 election is over, both because it is "capable of repetition, yet evading review," and because the results of that election will entitle the HWP to enter the next election as an established party in all or part of the county so long as its candidates were entitled to their places on the 1990 ballot. Pp. 287-288. 2. Sections 10-2 and 10-5, as construed by the State Supreme Court, violate petitioners' right of access to the county ballot. Pp. 288-295. (a) The right of citizens to create and develop new political parties derives from the First and Fourteenth Amendments and advances the constitutional interest of like-minded voters to gather in pursuit of common political ends, thus enlarging all voters' opportunities to express their own political preferences. See, e. g., Illinois Bd. of Elections v. Socialist Workers Party, 440 U. S. 173, 184. Therefore, a State may limit new parties' access to the ballot only to the extent that a sufficiently weighty state interest justifies the restriction. Any severe restriction must be narrowly drawn to advance a state interest of compelling importance. See id., at 184, 186. Pp. 288-289. (b) The State Supreme Court's inhospitable reading of § 10-5 is far broader than is necessary to serve the asserted state interest in preventing misrepresentation and electoral confusion. That interest could be served merely by requiring candidates to get formal permission from an established party to use its name, a simple expedient for fostering an informed electorate without suppressing small parties' growth. Reed offers no support for her apparent assumption that petitioners did not obtain such permission from the Chicago HWP, and the State Supreme Court itself found unworthy of mention any theory that Evans lacked authority under state law to authorize the HWP name's use. Pp. 289-291. (c) Similarly, disqualifying all HWP candidates because of the failure to collect 25,000 signatures in each district is not the least restrictive
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