Goosby v. Osser, 409 U.S. 512; O'Brien v. Skinner, 414 U.S. 524. Pp. 794-795. No. 72-942, affirmed; No. 72-887, 349 F. Supp. 1272, affirmed in part, vacated and remanded in part. WHITE, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which BURGER, C. J., and BRENNAN, STEWART, MARSHALL, BLACKMUN, POWELL, and REHNQUIST, JJ., joined.
Rejecting the challenge, the District Court for the Western District of Texas noted that the notarization requirement served "a compelling interest to insure that participants in one party's nominating process do not participate in another's." Raza Unida Party v. Bullock , 349 F.Supp. 1272, 1280 (W.D. Tex. 1972), aff'd in part, vacated in part sub nom. Am. Party of Tex. , 415 U.S. 767, 94 S.Ct. 1296, 39 L.Ed.2d 744 (1974). The district court further stated that there was "apparently no workable alternative ... if the state is to be able to enforce its criminal penalties against cross-over voting and apprize the voters of these possible penalties."
The District Court held that the challenged provisions of the Texas Election Code served a compelling state interest and did not deny adequate access to the ballot. Raza Unida Party v. Bullock, 349 F. Supp. 1272 (W.D.Texas, 1972). On appeal, the Supreme Court agreed stating:
The State of Texas has an overriding interest, on behalf of its citizenry, in protecting the integrity of the political process, and such protection certainly includes the prevention of "raiding" from one political party to another. Thus a recent three-judge panel in Raza Unida Party v. Bullock, 349 F. Supp. 1272 (W.D.Tex. 1972) upheld a Texas primary election statute requiring that a voter choose between voting in a primary and attending the convention of a party not conducting a primary. The principles embodied in Raza Unida are certainly present here, for under the facts in Raza Unida voters who wished to be associated with the party holding a convention in lieu of a primary were not allowed to participate in choosing candidates for offices for which their minority party did not choose to field candidates.
B. Plaintiffs failed to show a denial of equal protection of the laws, in particular, V.A.T.S. Election Code, Article 13.12(2a) under the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, and Plaintiffs' Complaint is accordingly dismissed. C. V.A.T.S. Election Code, Article 13.12(2a) does not deny equal protection and therefore is not unconstitutional. Raza Unida Party et al. v. Bullock, 349 F. Supp. 1272 (D.C.W.D.Tex. 1972), and Tansley v. Grasso, 315 F. Supp. 513 (D.C.).
The State's interest in establishing an age qualification for voters is “unimpeachable.” Mitchell, 400 U.S. at 294 (Stewart, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part); see Raza Unida Party v. Bullock, 349 F. Supp. 1272, 1283 (W.D. Tex. 1972), aff'd in part and vacated in part on other grounds sub nom. American Party of Texas v. White, 415 U.S. 767, 94 S. Ct. 1296, 39 L. Ed. 2d 744 (1974); Gaunt, 341 F. Supp. at 1190, 1192. We believe that these valid state interests justify whatever burdens Part I, Article 11 of the State Constitution imposes upon the associational rights of political parties.
It is not entirely without significance that their presence in our constitution is mirrored by the age requirements fixed in the U.S. Constitution for members of Congress, Art. I, § 2 (Representatives, 25 years) and § 3 (Senators, 30 years). See Manson v. Edwards, supra, 482 F.2d at 1078; Raza Unida Party v. Bullock,349 F. Supp. 1272, 1283 (W.D. Texas 1972), aff'd in part, vacated in part subnom. American Party of Texas v. White, 415 U.S. 767, 94 S.Ct. 1296, 39 L.Ed.2d 744 (1974).