Declareyour rightto vote.

The Constitution assigns the qualifications of voters to each State and gives Congress power over the times, places and manner of congressional elections. Political parties do not appear in the text.

U.S. Const. art. I, §§ 2, 4

Fifteenth Amendment ratified: the right to vote shall not be denied or abridged on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude. Enforcement declined after 1877.

U.S. Const. amend. XV

Southern States rewrite their constitutions to add poll taxes, literacy and understanding tests, grandfather clauses and registration hurdles. The Supreme Court declines to intervene.

Williams v. Mississippi, 170 U.S. 213 (1898); Giles v. Harris, 189 U.S. 475 (1903)

The direct primary spreads as a Progressive reform to take nominations away from party bosses. New York adopts one for most offices in 1911 and extends it to statewide offices in 1913. In the one-party South the Democratic primary becomes the only election that matters, and parties adopt whites-only membership rules. The white primary is born as a workaround to the Fifteenth Amendment.

N.Y. Laws 1911, ch. 891 (the Ferris law); N.Y. Laws 1913, ch. 820

Seventeenth Amendment: direct election of Senators.

U.S. Const. amend. XVII

Guinn v. United States: Oklahoma’s grandfather clause violates the Fifteenth Amendment. The first modern voting-rights victory.

Guinn v. United States, 238 U.S. 347 (1915)

Nineteenth Amendment: the right to vote shall not be denied or abridged on account of sex.

U.S. Const. amend. XIX

Newberry v. United States: a divided Court doubts that Congress’s power over elections reaches party primaries. The primary is treated as outside the constitutional election.

Newberry v. United States, 256 U.S. 232 (1921)

Nixon v. Herndon and Nixon v. Condon: Texas statutes barring Black voters from the Democratic primary, and then delegating that decision to the party’s executive committee, violate the Fourteenth Amendment. State action is present because the State legislated.

Nixon v. Herndon, 273 U.S. 536 (1927); Nixon v. Condon, 286 U.S. 73 (1932)

Grovey v. Townsend: when the Texas Democratic Party itself limits membership to white voters by convention resolution, the Court finds no state action. The high-water mark of the private-party theory.

Grovey v. Townsend, 295 U.S. 45 (1935)

United States v. Classic: where the State has made the primary an integral part of the procedure of choice, or where the primary effectively controls the choice, the right of qualified voters to vote in it is secured by the Constitution. Newberry is effectively abandoned.

United States v. Classic, 313 U.S. 299 (1941)

Rice v. Elmore: South Carolina repeals all statutes regulating primaries so the party can operate as a private club. The Fourth Circuit holds the primary is still the election and the exclusion still unconstitutional.

Rice v. Elmore, 165 F.2d 387 (4th Cir. 1947), cert. denied, 333 U.S. 875 (1948)

Terry v. Adams: a private whites-only group whose pre-primary straw poll determined the nominee violates the Fifteenth Amendment. Even an unofficial, privately funded pre-primary is part of the election when it is the stage that decides the outcome.

Terry v. Adams, 345 U.S. 461 (1953)

Sweezy v. New Hampshire: any interference with the freedom of a party is simultaneously an interference with the freedom of its adherents. The party’s rights are its members’ rights.

Sweezy v. New Hampshire, 354 U.S. 234 (1957) (plurality)

NAACP v. Alabama: compelled disclosure of membership lists violates the freedom of association. The privacy of political association is protected.

NAACP v. Alabama ex rel. Patterson, 357 U.S. 449 (1958)

Gray v. Sanders announces one person, one vote in a case about Georgia’s Democratic primary; Reynolds v. Sims applies it to legislative districting. The Twenty-Fourth Amendment abolishes the poll tax in federal elections.

Gray v. Sanders, 372 U.S. 368 (1963); Reynolds v. Sims, 377 U.S. 533 (1964); U.S. Const. amend. XXIV

The Voting Rights Act is enacted. Harper holds the poll tax in state elections violates equal protection: wealth, like race, is not germane to a voter’s ability to participate, and the degree of discrimination is irrelevant.

Voting Rights Act of 1965; Harper v. Virginia State Board of Elections, 383 U.S. 663 (1966)

Carrington v. Rash holds a State may not fence out voters because of how they may vote; Dunn v. Blumstein applies strict scrutiny to laws denying the vote to otherwise qualified residents. The Twenty-Sixth Amendment lowers the voting age to eighteen.

Carrington v. Rash, 380 U.S. 89 (1965); Dunn v. Blumstein, 405 U.S. 330 (1972); U.S. Const. amend. XXVI

Rosario v. Rockefeller upholds New York’s enrollment deadline as a time limit justified by preventing party raiding. Kusper v. Pontikes strikes Illinois’s twenty-three-month lock on changing parties. The line between a deadline and a lock-out is drawn.

Rosario v. Rockefeller, 410 U.S. 752 (1973); Kusper v. Pontikes, 414 U.S. 51 (1973)

Nader v. Schaffer: unaffiliated Connecticut voters have no right to vote in a party’s primary. The single most important adverse authority in this case.

Nader v. Schaffer, 417 F. Supp. 837 (D. Conn.), summarily aff’d, 429 U.S. 989 (1976)

Anderson v. Celebrezze and Burdick v. Takushi establish the sliding-scale test: severe burdens get strict scrutiny, reasonable nondiscriminatory restrictions are justified by important regulatory interests. Most closed-primary challenges since have been decided, and lost, under this test.

Anderson v. Celebrezze, 460 U.S. 780 (1983); Burdick v. Takushi, 504 U.S. 428 (1992)

Tashjian: a State may not stop a party inviting unenrolled voters into its primary. Footnote 7 observes that requiring public affiliation as a condition of voting conditions the associational right on a public statement of adherence.

Tashjian v. Republican Party of Connecticut, 479 U.S. 208 (1986)

When a New York party’s rules admit unenrolled voters, the State and City Boards must let them vote — section 8-302(4) yields to the party’s Tashjian right. No qualified New York party has adopted such a rule.

State Committee of the Independence Party v. Berman, 294 F. Supp. 2d 518 (S.D.N.Y. 2003); Independence Party of Richmond County v. Graham, 332 F. Supp. 2d 690 (S.D.N.Y. 2004)

Clingman upholds Oklahoma’s semi-closed primary: a party cannot compel the State to admit other parties’ members. Lopez Torres upholds New York’s judicial nominating conventions, reiterating that a party’s internal processes are the party’s.

Clingman v. Beaver, 544 U.S. 581 (2005); N.Y. State Board of Elections v. Lopez Torres, 552 U.S. 196 (2008)

Balsam: the predecessor case, brought by the same counsel, dismissed under Nader and Anderson-Burdick. The Third Circuit said no court had ever held the right to vote guarantees participation in primaries, and read Classic as silent on who is qualified. The New York complaint is built to answer each of those points.

Balsam v. Secretary of State of New Jersey, 607 F. App’x 177 (3d Cir. 2015), cert. denied sub nom. Balsam v. Guadagno, 136 S. Ct. 189 (2015)

Democratic Party of Hawaii v. Nago: a party’s challenge to Hawaii’s open primary fails. The party did not show a severe burden from the State’s choice to let all voters participate.

Democratic Party of Hawaii v. Nago, 833 F.3d 1119 (9th Cir. 2016)

New York consolidates state and federal primaries in June and amends section 5-304 so enrollment changes received after February 14 take effect only after the June primary. In 2020 the party-qualification threshold is raised, and the Independence Party and others lose party status.

N.Y. Laws 2019, chs. 5 and 316; N.Y. Laws 2020, ch. 58, Part ZZZ, § 10

Americans for Prosperity Foundation v. Bonta: compelled disclosure of associational affiliation is subject to exacting scrutiny with narrow tailoring, whether or not the challenger shows a specific threat of reprisal.

Americans for Prosperity Foundation v. Bonta, 594 U.S. 595 (2021)

Polelle: an unaffiliated Florida voter’s closed-primary challenge fails under Anderson-Burdick as a minimal burden, and certiorari is denied — despite 57 percent of Florida voters backing a nonpartisan-primary amendment in 2020, short of the 60 percent required.

Polelle v. Florida Secretary of State, 131 F.4th 1201 (11th Cir. 2025), cert. denied sub nom. Polelle v. Byrd, 146 S. Ct. 298 (2025)