228
Rehnquist, C. J., dissenting
democratic processes. Cf. Timmons v. Twin Cities Area New Party, 520 U. S. 351, 358 (1997); Burdick v. Takushi, 504 U. S. 428, 433 (1992); Storer v. Brown, 415 U. S. 724, 730 (1974). Today's opinion, however, calls into question the validity of any regulation of petition circulation which runs afoul of the highly abstract and mechanical test of diminishing the pool of petition circulators or making a proposal less likely to appear on the ballot. See ante, at 194-195. It squarely holds that a State may not limit circulators to registered voters, and maintains a sphinx-like silence as to whether it may even limit circulators to state residents.
II
Section 1-40-112(1) of Colorado's initiative petition law provides that "[n]o section of a petition for any initiative or referendum measure shall be circulated by any person who is not a registered elector and at least eighteen years of age at the time the section is circulated." Colo. Rev. Stat. § 1- 40-112(1) (1998). This requirement is obviously intended to ensure that the people involved in getting a measure placed on the ballot are the same people who will ultimately vote on that measure—the electors of the State. Indeed, it is difficult to envision why the State cannot do this, but for the unfortunate dicta in Meyer. The parties agree that for purposes of this appeal there are 1.9 million registered voters in Colorado, and that 400,000 persons eligible to vote are not registered. See ante, at 193. But registering to vote in Colorado is easy—the only requirements are that a person be 18 years of age or older on the date of the next election, a citizen of the United States, and a resident of the precinct in which the person will vote 30 days immediately prior to the election. See Colo. Rev. Stat. § 1-2-101 (1998). The elector requirement mirrors Colorado's regulation of candidate elections, for which all delegates to county and state assemblies must be registered electors, § 1-4-602(5), and
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