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Opinion of Stevens, J.
on the general election ballot, without the need to declare their candidacy or to demonstrate their support with a nominating petition. § 24.2-511. Party nominees are listed sequentially on the ballot before independent candidates, all of whom are grouped together in a separate row or column or spaced apart from the former.10 §§ 24.2-613, 24.2-640. Virginia law authorizes the two parties to determine for themselves how they will select their nominees—by primary, by nominating convention, or by some other method. § 24.2-509(A).11 The Republican Party has taken advantage
(1993). The Democratic Party of Virginia and the Republican Party of Virginia are the only organizations that satisfy that definition.
The definition has not been set in stone, however. Before 1991, the term "political party" included only parties that polled 10 percent of the vote at the last preceding statewide election. The Democratic Party, however, did not field a candidate for the 1990 Senate race, and thus would have lost its automatic ballot access for the next election. See 29 Council of State Governments, Book of the States 260 (1992-1993 ed.). Rather than allow that outcome, the Virginia Legislature amended the definition to qualify parties that polled the requisite number of votes at either of the two preceding elections and provided that the amendment would apply retroactively. See 1991 Va. Acts, ch. 12, § 1(7).
10 Virginia law also allows the major political parties to substitute a new nominee should the chosen nominee die, withdraw, or have his or her nomination set aside. In that circumstance, other parties and independent candidates are also permitted to make nominations, but the triggering event occurs only when a party nominee cannot run. The statute thus ensures that the major parties will always have a candidate on the ballot. See Va. Code Ann. §§ 24.2-539, 24.2-540 (1993).
11 In some circumstances, a primary election is required unless the incumbent officeholder from that party consents to a different method of nomination. Va. Code Ann. § 24.2-509(B) (1993). In its brief, the Party suggested that this one exception to plenary party control over the method of nomination is unconstitutional. See Brief for Appellees 31. While it appeared that the Party might bring suit before the 1996 election to try to have the provision struck down, see Whitley, Republicans Wrestle with Primary Issue, Richmond Times-Dispatch, Oct. 25, 1995, p. B1, it relented after the Attorney General of Virginia determined that the law was probably valid. See Va. Op. Atty. Gen. (Nov. 22, 1995). In any event, because the incumbent United States Senator was a Democrat in 1994, the Party
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