California Democratic Party v. Jones, 530 U.S. 567, 6 (2000)

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572

CALIFORNIA DEMOCRATIC PARTY v. JONES

Opinion of the Court

II

Respondents rest their defense of the blanket primary upon the proposition that primaries play an integral role in citizens' selection of public officials. As a consequence, they contend, primaries are public rather than private proceedings, and the States may and must play a role in ensuring that they serve the public interest. Proposition 198, respondents conclude, is simply a rather pedestrian example of a State's regulating its system of elections.

We have recognized, of course, that States have a major role to play in structuring and monitoring the election process, including primaries. See Burdick v. Takushi, 504 U. S. 428, 433 (1992); Tashjian v. Republican Party of Conn., 479 U. S. 208, 217 (1986). We have considered it "too plain for argument," for example, that a State may require parties to use the primary format for selecting their nominees, in order to assure that intraparty competition is resolved in a democratic fashion. American Party of Tex. v. White, 415 U. S. 767, 781 (1974); see also Tashjian, supra, at 237 (Scalia, J., dissenting). Similarly, in order to avoid burdening the general election ballot with frivolous candidacies, a State may require parties to demonstrate "a signifi-cant modicum of support" before allowing their candidates a place on that ballot. See Jenness v. Fortson, 403 U. S. 431, 442 (1971). Finally, in order to prevent "party raiding"—a process in which dedicated members of one party formally switch to another party to alter the outcome of that party's primary—a State may require party registration a reasonable period of time before a primary election. See Rosario v. Rockefeller, 410 U. S. 752 (1973). Cf. Kusper v. Pontikes, 414 U. S. 51 (1973) (23-month waiting period unreasonable).

What we have not held, however, is that the processes by which political parties select their nominees are, as respondents would have it, wholly public affairs that States

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