Cite as: 525 U. S. 182 (1999)
Opinion of the Court
year, see 1981 Colo. Sess. Laws, ch. 56, § 4, Colorado added to the requirement that petition circulators be residents, the further requirement that they be registered voters.13 Registration, Colorado's Attorney General explained at oral argument, demonstrates "commit[ment] to the Colorado law-making process," Tr. of Oral Arg. 10, and facilitates verification of the circulator's residence, see id., at 10, 14. Beyond question, Colorado's registration requirement drastically reduces the number of persons, both volunteer and paid, available to circulate petitions. We must therefore inquire whether the State's concerns warrant the reduction. See Timmons, 520 U. S., at 358.
When this case was before the District Court, registered voters in Colorado numbered approximately 1.9 million. At least 400,000 persons eligible to vote were not registered. See 2 Tr. 159 (testimony of Donetta Davidson, elections official in the Colorado Secretary of State's office); 14 120 F. 3d, at 1100 ("Colorado acknowledges there are at least 400,000 qualified but unregistered voters in the state.").15
13 Colorado law similarly provides that only registered voters may circulate petitions to place candidates on the ballot. See Colo. Rev. Stat. § 1-4-905(1) (1998) (only "eligible elector" may circulate candidate petitions); § 1-1-104(16) ("eligible elector" defined as "registered elector").
14 Volume 1 of the trial transcript is reprinted in Pro-Se Plaintiff's App. I in No. 94-1576 (CA10), and is cited hereinafter as 1 Tr. Volume 2 of the trial transcript is reprinted in Pro-Se Plaintiff's App. II in No. 94-1576 (CA10), and is cited hereinafter as 2 Tr.
15 In fact, the number of unregistered but voter-eligible residents in Colorado at the time of the trial may have been closer to 620,000. See U. S. Dept. of Commerce, Bureau of Census, Statistical Abstract of the United States 282 (1993) (Table 453).
More recent statistics show that less than 65 percent of the voting-age population was registered to vote in Colorado in 1997. See U. S. Dept. of Commerce, Bureau of Census, Statistical Abstract of the United States 289 (1997) (Table 463). Using those more recent numbers, Colorado's registration requirement would exclude approximately 964,000 unregistered but voter-eligible residents from circulating petitions. The proportion of
193
Page: Index Previous 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 NextLast modified: October 4, 2007