Gerald L.K. Smith, the West’s foremost anti-Semite, and his Christian Nationalist Party, lost their fight in the State Supreme Court last week to appear on the California ballot. The high court handed down a decision upholding a judgment of dismissal of a lawsuit filed by the party in Los Angeles.
Smith, who was his party’s presidential candidate in 1956, charged in his action that the Election Code provisions for attaining a place on the ballot were so stringent as to be an unconstitutional limitation on the right of suffrage. Under the code the party would be obligated to obtain 41,000 registrants or file a petition signed by 410,000 voters to place on the 1958 ballot. The Supreme Court ruled that the code’s restrictions were reasonable.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.