Oklahoma’s primary election process is legal according to the U.S. Supreme Court. Current state law bans a political party from allowing any registered voters from an outside party to vote for their candidates in a primary election. Libertarians argued that political parties should have the right to decide whether to allow other voters to participate in selecting party candidates.

The justices reversed a U.S. appeals court ruling that declared the Oklahoma law unconstitutional. Justice Clarence Thomas said for the court majority that any burden imposed by Oklahoma system is minor and justified by legitimate state interests.

And therefore the state’s interest in a two-party system justifies the voters’ “minor burden” of a restricted voice.

Justices John Paul Stevens, David Souter and Ruth Bader Ginsburg dissented.

“The court’s decision today diminishes the value of two important rights protected by the First Amendment: the individual citizen’s right to vote for the candidate of her choice and a political party’s right to define its own mission,” Stevens wrote.

The majority opinion “has little to support it other than a naked interest in protecting the two major parties,” Stevens concluded.

Of course the state was representing the two major parties only. But since the state’s interest is evidently paramount to the voters’, couldn’t they just as well argue one day that the state has a legitimate interest in a one party system also?

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