Cite as: 514 U. S. 779 (1995)
Opinion of the Court
write-in candidates have only a slight chance of victory.45
But even if petitioners are correct that incumbents may occasionally win reelection as write-in candidates, there is no denying that the ballot restrictions will make it significantly more difficult for the barred candidate to win the election. In our view, an amendment with the avowed purpose and obvious effect of evading the requirements of the Qualifications Clauses by handicapping a class of candidates cannot stand. To argue otherwise is to suggest that the Framers spent significant time and energy in debating and crafting Clauses that could be easily evaded. More importantly, allowing States to evade the Qualifications Clauses by "dress[ing] eligibility to stand for Congress in ballot access clothing" trivializes the basic principles of our democracy that underlie those Clauses. Petitioners' argument treats the Qualifications Clauses not as the embodiment of a grand principle, but rather as empty formalism. " 'It is inconceivable that guaranties embedded in the Constitution of the United States may thus be manipulated out of existence.' " Gomillion v. Lightfoot, 364 U. S. 339, 345 (1960), quoting Frost & Frost Trucking Co. v. Railroad Comm'n of Cal., 271 U. S. 583, 594 (1926).
45 We noted in Lubin v. Panish, 415 U. S. 709 (1974), that "[t]he realities of the electoral process . . . strongly suggest that 'access' via write-in votes falls far short of access in terms of having the name of the candidate on the ballot." Id., at 719, n. 5; see also Anderson v. Celebrezze, 460 U. S. 780, 799, n. 26 (1983) ("We have previously noted that [a write-in] opportunity is not an adequate substitute for having the candidates name appear on the printed ballot"); United States v. Classic, 313 U. S. 299, 313 (1941) ("Even if . . . voters may lawfully write into their ballots, cast at the general election, the name of a candidate rejected at the primary and have their ballots counted, the practical operation of the primary law . . . is such as to impose serious restrictions upon the choice of candidates by the voters"); Burdick v. Takushi, 504 U. S. 428, 437, n. 7 (1992) ("If the dissent were correct in suggesting that requiring primary voters to select a specific ballot impermissibly burdened the right to vote, it is clear under our decisions that the availability of a write-in option would not provide an adequate remedy").
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