Writing for the majority, Chief Justice
William Rehnquist relied on the Supreme Court's 1992 upholding of
Hawaii's ban on
write-in candidates in
Burdick v. Takushi to frame this Minnesota law as an acceptable state regulation of the electoral process. Citing
Burdick, the majority opined that "ballots serve primarily to elect candidates, not as forums for political expression." In response to
Laurence Tribe's oral argument that Minnesota had explicitly passed its fusion voting ban to limit the emergence of third parties relying on popular slogans or candidates, rather than popular ideas, Rehnquist considered the law within the state's strong interest in stabilizing its elections.
Dissents Associate Justices
John Paul Stevens and
David Souter wrote separate dissents, the former of which was fully joined by
Ruth Bader Ginsburg and partially by Souter. Stevens' dissent argued that a third party's unburdened right to advocate for its preferred major party candidate was insufficient because the relevance of a political party depends on its electoral success. Further, Stevens believed that states concerned about voter confusion should instead raise the signature threshold for parties to appear on the ballot. Souter's dissent argued that because Minnesota had not presented the preservation of the
two-party system as its state interest in this law, the majority should not have considered Tribe's reference to the legislative record. However, Souter cited statistics on declining party affiliation during the
1990s to argue that states may have an interest in maintaining the two-party system for governmental stability. == Legacy ==