366
Opinion of the Court
Relatedly, petitioners urge that permitting fusion would undercut Minnesota's ballot-access regime by allowing minor parties to capitalize on the popularity of another party's candidate, rather than on their own appeal to the voters, in order to secure access to the ballot. Brief for Petitioners 45-46. That is, voters who might not sign a minor party's nominating petition based on the party's own views and candidates might do so if they viewed the minor party as just another way of nominating the same person nominated by one of the major parties. Thus, Minnesota fears that fusion would enable minor parties, by nominating a major party's candidate, to bootstrap their way to major-party status in the next election and circumvent the State's nominating-petition requirement for minor parties. See Minn. Stat. §§ 200.02, subd. 7 (defining "major party"), and 204D.13 (1994) (describing ballot order for major and other parties). The State surely has a valid interest in making sure that minor and third parties who are granted access to the ballot are bona fide and actually supported, on their own merits, by those who have provided the statutorily required petition or ballot support. Anderson, 460 U. S., at 788, n. 9; Storer, 415 U. S., at 733, 746.
States also have a strong interest in the stability of their
political systems.10 Eu, supra, at 226; Storer, supra, at 736.
10 The dissents state that we may not consider "what appears to be the true basis for [our] holding—the interest in preserving the two-party system," post, at 377 (opinion of Stevens, J.), because Minnesota did not defend this interest in its briefs and "expressly rejected" it at oral argument, post, at 378; see also post, at 382-383 (opinion of Souter, J.). In fact, at oral argument, the State contended that it has an interest in the stability of its political system and that, even if certain election-related regulations, such as those requiring single-member districts, tend to work to the advantage of the traditional two-party system, the "States do have a permissible choice . . . there, as long as they don't go so far as to close the door to minor part[ies]." Tr. of Oral Arg. 27; see also Brief for Petitioners 46-47 (discussing State's interest in avoiding " 'splintered parties and unrestrained factionalism' ") (quoting Storer, 415 U. S., at 736). We agree.
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