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For Immediate Release
May, 11 2010, 10:06am EDT
Contact:
Maria Archuleta, (212) 519-7808 or 549-2666; media@aclu.org
ACLU Tells Appellate Court South Carolina's Ballot Access Law Is Unconstitutional
Group Argues "Sore Loser" Statute Violates Free Association Rights
RICHMOND, Va.
The American Civil Liberties Union argued
in a federal appeals court in Virginia today that South Carolina's
so-called "sore loser" statute unconstitutionally violates the rights of
voters and parties to select the candidates of their choosing. The
statute prevents candidates who seek nominations from multiple parties
from appearing on the ballot if they lose any one party's nomination.
The challenged statute blocked Eugene
Platt, the Green Party's chosen candidate for the state House of
Representatives, from appearing on the ballot in the November 2008
elections because he later lost the Democratic Party's primary
nomination.
"Voters and parties have the right to
put the candidates of their choice on the ballot," said Bryan Sells,
senior staff attorney with the ACLU Voting Rights Project, who argued
the case today. "The U.S. Constitution provides special protection for
the process in which a political party selects a nominee that best
represents its ideology and preferences."
South Carolina is one of only a
handful of states that permit fusion voting, which allows multiple
political parties to nominate the same candidate. However, the state's
"sore loser" statute blocks a candidate from appearing on the ballot if
he or she loses any party's nomination even if another party selects
that candidate as its nominee.
The ACLU's lawsuit charges that the
statute imposes an unjustified burden on the First Amendment's free
association rights of candidates and voters as well as political
parties' right to select their preferred candidates.
"South Carolina's election scheme
rejects the First Amendment's fundamental protections and makes the
outcome of one party's primary dependent on the outcome of every other
party's nominating process," said Sells. "The real losers here are the
democratic process and the voters of South Carolina who are being denied
greater choices at the ballot box."
Attorneys on the case, South Carolina Green Party et al. v. South
Carolina State Election Commission et al., are Sells and Laughlin
McDonald of the ACLU Voting Rights Project.
The ACLU's legal brief in the case is
available at: www.aclu.org/voting-rights/south-carolina-green-party-et-al-v-south-carolina-state-election-commission-et-al-appe
More information on the work of the
ACLU Voting Rights Project is available at: www.votingrights.org
The American Civil Liberties Union was founded in 1920 and is our nation's guardian of liberty. The ACLU works in the courts, legislatures and communities to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to all people in this country by the Constitution and laws of the United States.
(212) 549-2666LATEST NEWS
Siding With NYT, US Judge Blocks 'Outrageous' Pentagon Press Policy
"It's unfortunate that it took this long for the Pentagon's ridiculous policy to be thrown in the trash," said one press freedom advocate.
Mar 20, 2026
A federal judge in Washington, DC blocked the US Department of Defense's widely decried press policy on Friday, which The New York Times and reporter Julian Barnes had argued violates their rights under the First and Fifth amendments to the Constitution.
The Times filed its lawsuit in December, shortly after the first briefing for the "Pentagon Propaganda Corps," which critics called those who signed the DOD's pledge not to report on any information unless it is explicitly authorized by the Trump administration. Journalists who refused the agreement turned over their press credentials and carried out boxes of their belongings.
"A primary purpose of the First Amendment is to enable the press to publish what it will and the public to read what it chooses, free of any official proscription," Judge Paul Friedman, who was appointed to the US District Court for DC by former President Bill Clinton, wrote in a 40-page opinion.
"Those who drafted the First Amendment believed that the nation's security requires a free press and an informed people and that such security is endangered by governmental suppression of political speech," he continued. "That principle has preserved the nation’s security for almost 250 years. It must not be abandoned now."
Friedman recognized that "national security must be protected, the security of our troops must be protected, and war plans must be protected," but also stressed that "especially in light of the country's recent incursion into Venezuela and its ongoing war with Iran, it is more important than ever that the public have access to information from a variety of perspectives about what its government is doing—so that the public can support government policies, if it wants to support them; protest, if it wants to protest; and decide based on full, complete, and open information who they are going to vote for in the next election."
The newspaper said that Friday's ruling "enforces the constitutionally protected rights for the free press in this country. Americans deserve visibility into how their government is being run, and the actions the military is taking in their name and with their tax dollars. Today's ruling reaffirms the right of the Times and other independent media to continue to ask questions on the public's behalf."
The Times had hired a prominent First Amendment lawyer, Theodore Boutrous Jr. of Gibson Dunn, who celebrated the decision as "a powerful rejection of the Pentagon's effort to impede freedom of the press and the reporting of vital information to the American people during a time of war."
"As the court recognized, those provisions violate not only the First Amendment and the due process clause, but also the founding principle that the nation's security depends upon a free press," Boutrous said. "The district court's opinion is not just a win for the Times, Mr. Barnes, and other journalists, but most importantly, for the American people who benefit from their coverage of the Pentagon."
Seth Stern, chief of advocacy at Freedom of the Press Foundation, also welcomed the ruling, saying that "the judge was right to see the Pentagon's outrageous censorship for what it is, but this wasn't exactly a close call. If the same issue was presented as a hypothetical question on a first-year law school exam, the professor would be criticized for making the test too easy."
"It's shocking that this sweeping prior restraint was the official policy of our federal government and that Department of Justice lawyers had the nerve to argue that journalists asking questions of the government is criminal," Stern declared. "Fifty years ago, the Supreme Court called prior restraints on the press 'the most serious and the least tolerable' of First Amendment violations. At the time, the court was talking about relatively targeted orders restraining specific reporting because of a specific alleged threat—like in the Pentagon Papers case, where the government falsely claimed that the documents about the Vietnam War leaked by Daniel Ellsberg threatened national security."
"Courts back then could never have anticipated the government broadly restraining all reporting that it doesn't authorize without any justification beyond hypothetical speculation," he added. "It's unfortunate that it took this long for the Pentagon's ridiculous policy to be thrown in the trash. Especially now that we are spending money and blood on yet another war based on constantly shifting pretexts, journalists should double down on their commitment to finding out what the Pentagon does not want the public to know rather than parroting 'authorized' narratives."
The Trump administration has not yet said whether it will appeal the decision in the case, which was brought against the DOD—which President Donald Trump calls the Department of War—as well as Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and the Pentagon’s chief spokesperson, Sean Parnell.
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As in Gaza, Israel's 'Deliberate' Bombing of Civilians Takes Heavy Toll
"When the international community didn't stop Israel as it deliberately killed nearly 75,000 Palestinians in Gaza, including 20,000 children, Israel knew they could kill civilians with impunity," said one critic.
Mar 20, 2026
Eighty percent of Lebanese people killed in Israel's renewed airstrikes on its northern neighbor were slain in attacks targeting only or mainly civilians, a leading international conflict monitor said Friday.
Reuters, using data provided by the Madison, Wisconsin-based Armed Conflict Location and Event Data (ACLED), reported that 666 people were killed by Israeli strikes on Lebanon between March 1-16. As of Thursday, Lebanese officials said the death toll from Israeli attacks had topped 1,000.
While Lebanese authorities do not break down the combatant status of those killed and wounded during the war, Israel's targeting of civilian infrastructure, including entire apartment buildings, and reports of whole families being wiped out, have belied Israeli officials' claims that they do everything possible to avoid harming civilians.
Classified Israel Defense Forces (IDF) data leaked last year revealed that—despite Israeli government claims of a historically low civilian-to-combatant kill ratio—83% of Palestinians killed during the first 19 weeks of the genocidal war on Gaza were civilians.
According to Gaza officials, 2,700 families were erased from the civil registry in the Palestinian exclave during Israel's genocidal assault.
"When the international community didn't stop Israel as it deliberately killed nearly 75,000 Palestinians in Gaza, including 20,000 children, Israel knew they could kill civilians with impunity," Lebanese diplomat Mohamad Safa said on social media earlier this week. "The result is exactly what we're seeing in Lebanon and Iran right now."
US-Israeli bombing of Iran has killed at least 1,444 people, according to officials in Tehran. The independent, Washington, DC-based monitor Human Rights Activists in Iran (HRAI) says the death toll is over twice as high as the official count and includes nearly 1,400 civilians.
The February 28 US massacre of around 175 children and staff at an elementary school for girls in the southern city of Minab—which US President Donald Trump initially tried to blame on Iran—remains the deadliest known incident of the three-week war.
As Israeli airstrikes intensify and the IDF prepares for a possible ground invasion of southern Lebanon—which Israel occupied from 1982-2000—experts are warning that noncombatants will once again pay the heaviest price.
United Nations officials and others assert that Israel's intentional attacks on civilians are war crimes. Israel is the subject of an ongoing genocide case filed by South Africa at the International Court of Justice, and the International Criminal Court has issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, who are accused of crimes against humanity and war crimes in Gaza.
"Deliberately attacking civilians or civilian objects amounts to a war crime," UN High Commissioner for Human Rights spokesperson Thameen al-Kheetan said earlier this week. "In addition, international law provides for specific protections for healthcare workers, as well as people at heightened risk, such as the elderly, women, and displaced people."
As was the case during Israel's bombing of Gaza and Lebanon following the October 7, 2023 attack, journalists are apparently being deliberately targeted again. Reporters Without Borders said in December that, for the third straight year, Israel was the world's leading killer of journalists in 2025.
"This was a deliberate, targeted attack on journalists," said RT correspondent Steve Sweeney after narrowly surviving an IDF airstrike on Thursday. "There's no mistake about it. This was an Israeli precision strike from a fighter jet."
"But if they think they’re going to silence us, if they think we're going to stay out of the field, they’re very, very much mistaken," he added.
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Aid Group Warns US-Israeli War on Iran Has Unleashed ‘Triple Emergency’ With Devastating Consequences for Millions
“With global humanitarian needs already at record levels, further escalation of the conflict in the Middle East and wider region will have grave ramifications for crises across the world,” said one advocate.
Mar 20, 2026
The US-Israeli war against Iran has unleashed a "triple emergency" that is draining the global humanitarian aid system of resources and putting millions of the world's most vulnerable people at even greater risk, according to a dire warning issued Friday by the International Rescue Committee.
The war has already resulted in the deaths of thousands and the displacement of millions of people in Iran and Lebanon. But the IRC says that the ripple effects of the war are beginning to spread to conflict zones across the world.
The conflict has caused many nations in the region to partially or fully close their airspace, leaving critical cargo stranded.
Meanwhile, Iran’s closure of the Strait of Hormuz in retaliation for US and Israeli attacks has disrupted the flow of more than 20% of the world’s oil exports, sharply raising transport costs and straining budgets that could go toward lifesaving aid.
“Medical aid is highly dependent on international transport,” said Willem Zuidema, Save the Children’s global supply chain director. “The blockage in the Strait of Hormuz, combined with spiking cost for insurance and fuel, is directly impacting patients in our health facilities, at the worst time possible.”
IRC said $130,000 worth of pharmaceutical aid intended for its humanitarian response to the conflict in Sudan has been left stranded in Dubai due to the strait's closure.
According to Save the Children, this delay has put 90 primary healthcare facilities across Sudan at risk of running low on supplies.
More than 400,000 children, the group estimated, could be affected by the inability to receive antibiotics, antimalarial drugs, pain and fever medications, and other treatments.
The group said it has been forced to deliver the aid using the much more costly method of transporting it across Jeddah, where it will be carried by sea freight to Sudan, which the group said could add as much as $1,000-2,000 per container.
The same is true of humanitarian zones in Afghanistan and Yemen, where treatments for thousands of children must now be delivered by air or by land, dramatically raising the costs.
The closure of the strait has also forced many vessels carrying aid to find alternative routes. IRC said its shipping partners have been forced to reroute their operations to instead travel around Africa's Cape of Good Hope, adding up to a month for ocean freight deliveries to war zones on the continent.
"What we are seeing is the war in Iran unleashing a triple emergency," said David Milliband, the president and CEO of IRC.
"First, a surge in humanitarian need, with Lebanon now the most visible humanitarian scar and one of the fastest-growing displacement crises in the world, with over one million people forced from their homes in weeks," he said.
"Second, a global economic shock, as disruptions to food, fuel, and fertilizer markets, putting up to 30% of fertilizer trade at risk, threatens more than 300 million people already facing acute food insecurity," said Milliband, and "third, a system under strain, with more than 60 conflicts stretching diplomatic attention and funding to a breaking point, pushing crises like Sudan and Gaza further down the list of priorities."
Milliband marveled at the priorities of the powers prosecuting the war. He pointed to a recent estimate from the Pentagon that the first six days of the war alone cost $11.3 billion, noting that "just $4 billion is enough to pay for treatment for every acutely malnourished child in the world."
Zuidema said that the "grave ripple effects" caused by the war are exacerbated by the fact that "governments are cutting vital foreign aid budgets."
He called on all parties to the war to cease hostilities and to adhere to their obligations under international law, including allowing the free flow of humanitarian aid.
“There should be no barriers to lifesaving supplies: Exemptions should be put in place to allow humanitarian supplies, fertilizer, and food to be able to move through the Strait of Hormuz,” Zuidema said. “With global humanitarian needs already at record levels, further escalation of the conflict in the Middle East and wider region will have grave ramifications for crises across the world.”
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