Smith v. Penta’s Empirical Analysis
1979
Citation profile
2 district · 34 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 36 later decisions — most recently November 2010 · most notably State v. Schmid (1980), City of Camden v. Byrne (1980)
2 district · 34 state decisions
Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.
Relationships
Relies on Reynolds v. Sims · William Marbury v. James Madison · Dunn v. Blumstein · Bullock v. Carter · Wesberry v. Sanders
Most-quoted passages
The sentences later courts lift from this opinion, ranked by how many decisions quote each — the parts of the opinion doing the work. These counts are smaller than the citation total above because most of the 36 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“The right to vote, as guaranteed by the plain language of our State Constitution, does not subsume an unfettered right to be involved in a party’s internal decision-making process, which is all that a primary election is. In this state, the right to participate in a political party’s primary election is a statutory one. [Id. at 73-74, 405 A.2d 350 ].”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“"This includes preserving parties as viable and identifiable interest groups; insuring that the results of primary elections, in a broad sense, accurately reflect the voting of party members. Parties should be able to avoid primary election outcomes which will confuse or mislead the general electorate to the extent it relies on party labels as representative of certain ideologies; and preventing fraudulent and deceptive conduct which mars the nominating process. * * * * * * * * As we have noted, the phrase `preservation of the integrity of the electoral process' contemplates, in the nominating context, the assurance that primary election results reflect the will of party members, undistorted by the votes of those unconcerned with, if not actually hostile to, the principles, philosophies, and goals of the party. The phrase contemplates the prevention of fraud in the nominating process, and a candidacy determined by the votes of non-party members is arguably a fraudulent candidacy."”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. Lesniak v. Budzash“(1) Voters generally affiliated with another party but wishing to cross over to a rival party’s primary to support a weak candidate who is likely to lose in the general election to the nominee of the voters’ preferred party (raiders); (2) voters generally affiliating with another party but wishing to cross over to support their preferred primary candidate in case the nominee of the voters’ own party loses the general election (second choice supporters); (3) voters generally affiliating with another party but wishing to cross over to support a candidate preferred over any potential nominee of the voters’ own party (cross overs); (4) voters generally not affiliating with any party but wishing to support a particular party candidate (independents).”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. Young v. Gardner
How this case has been treated — in progress
Whether each later court followed, distinguished, criticized, or overruled this decision. The treatment classification (task #35) runs highest-cited cases first and lights up here as it reaches this one.