Cite as: 502 U. S. 279 (1992)
Opinion of the Court
organizers collect enough signatures to place their candidates on the ballot, their organization becomes a "new political party" under Illinois law, and if the party succeeds in gathering 5% of the vote in the next election, it becomes an "established political party," freed from the signature requirements of § 10-2. Ibid. A political party that has not engaged in a statewide election, however, can be "established" only in a political subdivision where it has fielded candidates. A party is not established in Cook County, for example, merely because it has fared well in Chicago's municipal elections.
The Harold Washington Party (HWP or Party), named after the late mayor of Chicago, has been established in the city of Chicago since 1989. Petitioners were the principal organizers of an effort to expand the Party by establishing it in Cook County, and, as candidates for county office, they sought to run under the Party name in the November 1990 elections.
within a district of the political subdivision and signed only by qualified electors who are residents of such district. Each sheet of such petition must contain a complete list of the names of the candidates of the party for all offices to be filled in the political subdivision at large, but the sheets comprising each component shall also contain the names of those candidates to be elected from the particular district. Each component of the petition for each district from which an officer is to be elected must be signed by qualified voters of the district equalling in number not less than 5% of the number of voters who voted at the next preceding regular election in such district at which an officer was elected to serve the district. The entire petition, including all components, must be signed by a total of qualified voters of the entire political subdivision equalling in number not less than 5% of the number of voters who voted at the next preceding regular election in such political subdivision at which an officer was elected to serve the political subdivision at large."
The statute caps the 5% requirement for both district and subdivision petitions at 25,000 signatures, the number effectively required on statewide petitions. Cook County and its districts are so large that this cap applies to each.
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