210
Thomas, J., concurring in judgment
Barry, 485 U. S. 312, 321 (1988). The State's dominant justification for its badge requirement is that it helps the public to identify, and the State to apprehend, petition circulators who perpetrate fraud. Even assuming that this is a compelling interest, plainly, this requirement is not narrowly tailored. It burdens all circulators, whether they are responsible for committing fraud or not. In any event, the State has failed to satisfy its burden of demonstrating that fraud is a real, rather than a conjectural, problem. See Turner Broadcasting System, Inc. v. FCC, 512 U. S. 622, 664 (1994); Colorado Republican Federal Campaign Comm. v. Federal Election Comm'n, 518 U. S. 604, 647 (1996) (Thomas, J., concurring in judgment and dissenting in part).2
B
Although Colorado's registration requirement, Colo. Rev. Stat. § 1-40-112(1) (1998), does not directly regulate speech, it operates in the same fashion that Colorado's prohibition on paid circulators did in Meyer—the requirement reduces the voices available to convey political messages. We unanimously concluded in Meyer that initiative petition circulation was core political speech. 486 U. S., at 421-422. Colorado's law making it a felony to pay petition circulators burdened that political expression, we said, because it reduced the number of potential speakers. That reduction limited the size of the audience that initiative proponents and circulators might reach, which in turn made it less likely that initiative proposals would garner the signatures necessary to qualify
2 The majority is correct to note, ante, at 200, that the Tenth Circuit declined to address whether Colorado's requirement that the badge disclose whether a circulator is paid or a volunteer, and if paid, the name and telephone number of the payer, would be constitutionally permissible standing alone. Nevertheless, the District Court invalidated § 1-40- 112(2) in its entirety, American Constitutional Law Foundation, Inc. v. Meyer, 870 F. Supp. 995, 1005 (Colo. 1994), and the Court of Appeals affirmed that decision in full. American Constitutional Law Foundation, Inc. v. Meyer, 120 F. 3d 1092, 1096 (CA10 1997).
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