Potter Stewart

“ Cumbersome election machinery can effectively suffocate the right of association, the promotion of political ideas and programs of political action, and the right to vote. The totality of Ohio's requirements has those effects. It is unnecessary to decide whether Ohio has an interest, 'compelling' or not, in abridging those rights, because 'the men who drafted our Bill of Rights did all the 'balancing' that was to be done in this field.' Konigsberg v. ”

“ Ohioans, to be sure, as a result of the decision below, enjoy the opportunity of writing in the man of their choice on the ballot. But in a presidential election, a vote for a candidate is only operative as a vote for the electors representing him; and where the State has prevented that candidate from presenting a slate of electors for certification, the write-in vote has no effect. Furthermore, even where operative, the write-ins are no substitute for a place on the ballot.
To force a candidate to rely on writeins is to burden him with disability. ”

“ In our political life, third parties are often important channels through which political dissent is aired: 'All political ideas cannot and should not be channeled into the programs of our two major parties. History has amply proved the virtue of political activity by minority, dissident groups, which innumerable times have been in the vanguard of democratic thought and whose programs were ultimately accepted. ”