In the 1991 case of Alan B. Burdick v. Morris Takushi, Director of Elections of Hawaii, et al., the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of Hawaii's election laws which did not allow for write-in voting during elections. The plaintiff, Alan B. Burdick, argued that this law violated his First and Fourteenth Amendment rights to freedom of speech and equal protection under the law respectively as he was unable to vote for a candidate who was not officially on the ballot paper but whom he wished to support through a write-in vote option. However, by a majority decision (6-3), the court held that while voters have a right to cast their votes effectively without restriction or interference from state authorities; they do not necessarily possess an absolute constitutional right to vote for any particular candidate using any method they choose such as writing in names on ballots.

In the dissenting opinion for Burdick v. Takushi, Justice Kennedy argued that Hawaii's ban on write-in voting was a severe restriction of voters' rights and should be subject to strict scrutiny. He disagreed with the majority's view that the state's interest in avoiding voter confusion and maintaining a stable political system justified this infringement on individual liberties. Instead, he contended that these concerns were speculative at best and did not outweigh citizens' fundamental right to vote for their preferred candidates. Furthermore, he criticized the majority for failing to consider less restrictive alternatives such as educating voters about how to properly cast write-in votes or implementing procedures to handle potential disputes over ambiguous ballots.