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Constitution Party of Kansas v. Köbach, 695 F.3d 1140 (10th Cir. 2012). A Kansas voter registration statute, which sets requirements for political parties to be recognized for voter affiliation, does not vi- olate an unrecognized political party's First Amendment right to polit- ical speech and organization or that party's Fourteenth Amendment right to equal protection, when the unrecognized party does not benefit from the state recording and distributing affiliated voter information for campaign purposes, if the state's burden in maintaining the infor- mation outweighs the burden on the unrecognized party. The plaintiff, The Constitution Party of Kansas, is an unrecognized Kansas political party. The defendant, Kris Köbach, represents the state in his official capacity as the Secretary of the State of Kansas. Kansas is not required to record and track voter information of voters who do not register a party affiliation. However, when they do, this information is made available to the registered political party. The Constitution Party de- sired the same access to this information as registered political parties. Kansas law, Kan. Stat. Ann. § 25-3307(b), allows voters to register with a "registered political party" or "registered political organization," otherwise they must indicate they are unaffiliated. A party must collect, under Kan. Stat. Ann. § 25-302a, a petition with signatures of qualified electors totaling two percent (2%) of the last election's total vote to be- come a recognized political party. The Constitution Party argued that by imposing this requirement, the State Department of Kansas violated its First Amendment right of political speech and organization and its Fourteenth Amendment right of equal protection by not including the Constitution Party alongside other parties with which Kansas vot- ers can register and affiliate. The court recognized the balancing test in Anderson v. Celebrezze, 460 U.S. 780 (1983), which weighs the al- leged burden on constitutional rights against the state's interest in bur- dening those interests, as the seminal test on the constitutionality of law regulating party affiliation. The court found that the Constitution Party's burdened interests, including "a diverse marketplace of politi- cal ideas, communicating with possible party members, and effec- tively organizing political campaigns" were outweighed by Kansas's interests "in avoiding voter confusion . . . minimizing the administra- tive burden on the state . . . [and] controlling frivolous party registra- tion of fractional political interests." The Constitution Party argued the court should have applied the standard in Baer v. Meyer, 728 F.2d 471 (10th Cir. 1984). Although the facts were similar in Baer (holding "a modicum of political organization and support" can outweigh the state's interests), the court declined to extend its reasoning to cases outside of the Colorado law Baer interpreted. Granting the plaintiffs in Baer party recognition presented less of a burden for Colorado, be- cause an additional Colorado Supreme Court decision limited the rec- ognition from extending to "tiny fractional interests." Therefore, the court held Baer was a state specific ruling. Furthermore, the Constitu- tion Party failed to raise an evidentiary issue that would allow the court to evaluate the evidence under the Baer standard. Even if the Constitution Party had raised an evidentiary issue and Baer was appli- cable, the fact a candidate had never run under Constitution Party af- filiation meant the Baer test could not be satisfied. Thus, the court held, because Baer was a state specific ruling, the appropriate consti- tutionality analysis for the signature requirement imposed on unregis- tered political parties by the Kansas voter affiliation law is the balancing test applied in Anderson and upheld the ruling against the Constitution Party because the state's burden in maintaining voter affiliation infor- mation was greater than the burden on the unregistered party's infringed rights. (Mitch Bigbighauser)