EBEL, Circuit Judge.

The Constitution Party of Kansas, Curt Engelbrecht, and Mark Pickens sued the Secretary of State of Kansas, now Kris Kobach (hereinafter, the "Secretary"), in his official capacity, alleging that their First and Fourteenth Amendment rights are violated by the Secretary's refusal, consistent with Kansas law, to keep track of Kansas voters' affiliation with the Constitution Party because the Constitution Party is not a recognized political party under Kansas law. In the district court, the parties stipulated to a Joint Statement of Facts and filed cross-motions for summary judgment. The court ruled for the Secretary, determining that Kansas's system of tracking party affiliation did not unconstitutionally burden the plaintiffs' rights.

On appeal, the plaintiffs (hereinafter, the "Constitution Party") argue that the district court misapplied controlling Tenth Circuit precedent in evaluating their claim, and that under the proper analytical criteria, reversal is warranted. The Constitution Party does not contend that summary judgment was improper due to a lack of evidence in the record to support the Secretary's legal argument. Exercising jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291, we AFFIRM, based on our rejection of the argument on which the Constitution Party has chosen to hinge its appeal.

BACKGROUND

The Secretary of State of Kansas "may adopt rules and regulations prescribing the method of listing members of all registered political organizations in voter registration and affiliation." Kan. Stat. Ann. § 25-3307(b) (2011). Kansas allows its residents to declare, when they register to vote, "a party affiliation with any recognized political party or a voter affiliation with any registered political organization." Id. § 25-3306. Voters thus may affiliate themselves only with a "recognized political party" or "registered political organization,"1 see id.; otherwise voters must select "Not affiliated with a party" on the voter registration form, App'x at 7 ¶ 15. To become a recognized political party, the would-be party must file "petitions signed by qualified electors equal in number to at least 2% of the total vote cast for all candidates for the office of governor in the state in the last preceding general election." Kan. Stat. Ann. § 25-302a. Meanwhile, any registered political organization that "ha[s] obtained official recognition as a political party" in the past may "seek[] the right of designation on voter affiliation lists" by "fil[ing] a statement of organization and a certified list of officers with the [Secretary]." Id. § 25-3307(a). Under that avenue to voter affiliation tracking, "[c]urrent status as a recognized political party is not required." Id.

Currently there are five recognized political parties in Kansas: Democratic, Republican, Libertarian, Reform, and Americans Elect.2 If a Kansas voter does not declare affiliation with a recognized political party or a registered political organization, the voter is listed as unaffiliated by default. The Secretary tracks party affiliation information on a computer database, and that information is made available to the public. Party affiliation lists can be used for political campaign and election purposes.

The Constitution Party is an affiliation of individuals who promote political views and support candidates for state and national elected offices in Kansas, but it is not a recognized political party or a registered political organization under Kansas law. Thus, the Constitution Party has not satisfied the state statutory requirements for having the Secretary record and track voters' affiliation with it. That notwithstanding, the Constitution Party wishes to use party affiliation lists to contact and associate with members and supporters for political campaign or election purposes.

Purported supporters of the Constitution Party have run, in the past in Kansas, on the ticket of recognized party parties — i.e., not of the Constitution Party — because the Constitution Party is not a recognized political party in the state. For example, Susan Ducey, a Constitution Party supporter and former candidate for Congress in Kansas's Fourth Congressional District, ran as the candidate of the Kansas Reform Party because she could not do so under a Constitution Party label.

The Constitution Party filed suit against the Secretary on April 28, 2010, seeking declaratory and injunctive relief from the Secretary's alleged violations of the First and Fourteenth Amendment. Specifically, Count I of the complaint — the only count at issue on appeal3 — alleged that Kansas's failure to record and to track voter affiliation with the Constitution Party violates the First Amendment's guarantees of political speech and political association, as well as the Fourteenth Amendment's guarantee of equal protection under the law.4 In September 2010, the parties submitted a Joint Statement of Facts for purposes of ruling on Count I. Both parties then moved for summary judgment. In April 2011, after full briefing on the cross-motions, the district court granted summary judgment in favor of the Secretary.

The district court analyzed the Constitution Party's claim under the balancing test set forth in Anderson v. Celebrezze, 460 U.S. 780, 789, 103 S.Ct. 1564, 75 L.Ed.2d 547 (1983) (requiring courts evaluating "[c]onstitutional challenges to specific provisions of a State's election laws" to weigh the injury to plaintiffs' constitutional rights against the state's interests in burdening those rights). Under Anderson, the district court first determined that the Constitution Party had articulated "legitimate and important interests which are burdened by the State," namely, interests in a diverse marketplace of political ideas, communicating with possible party members, and effectively organizing political campaigns. App'x at 18-19. The court then decided that the Secretary had interests in regulating voter registration; in avoiding voter confusion and other frustrations to the democratic process; in minimizing the administrative burden on the state; and, in related fashion, in controlling frivolous party registration of fractional political interests. The court reflected that case law provides no "specific criteria for determining whether [a political] organization has a modicum of support" sufficient to warrant voter affiliation tracking privileges. Id. at 23. The court discussed several cases that had addressed the question, and concluded that

Id. at 26-27.

This appeal followed. As explained in greater detail below, the Constitution Party has limited its argument on appeal to the narrow question of whether it is entitled to relief as a matter of law under Baer v. Meyer, 728 F.2d 471 (10th Cir.1984) — a decision the Constitution Party argues "is the Tenth Circuit's articulation of how the balancing test in Anderson v. Celebrezze is to be considered in voter affiliation cases." Aplt. R. Br. at 5.

DISCUSSION

A. Standard of Review

"We review the district court's grant of summary judgment de novo, applying the same legal standard as the district court." US Airways, Inc. v. O'Donnell, 627 F.3d 1318, 1324 (10th Cir.2010) (quotation marks, citation omitted). "Cross motions for summary judgment are treated separately; the denial of one does not require the grant of another." Id. (alteration, quotation marks, citation omitted). "The court shall grant summary judgment if the movant shows that there is no genuine dispute as to any material fact and the movant is entitled to judgment as a matter of law." Fed.R.Civ.P. 56(a). In determining whether the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law based on the record, "we view the evidence and draw reasonable inferences therefrom in the light most favorable to" the nonmovant. Garrison v. Gambro, Inc., 428 F.3d 933, 935 (10th Cir.2005).

If a party chooses not to assert, or expressly disavows, a certain argument on appeal, we generally will not consider that argument in our review. See Perry v. Woodward, 199 F.3d 1126, 1141 n. 13 (10th Cir.1999) ("This court ... will not craft a party's arguments for him"); Vaz Dos Reis v. Holder, 606 F.3d 1, 4 (1st Cir.2010) ("When a party disavows a particular theory of the case, it is not an appellate court's proper role to make the disavowed argument for him."); cf. Bronson v. Swensen, 500 F.3d 1099, 1104 (10th Cir.2007) ("[W]e routinely have declined to consider arguments that are not raised, or are inadequately presented, in an appellant's opening brief.").

B. Analysis

I.

The analytical framework that governs constitutional challenges to laws regulating party affiliation on voter registration forms is the balancing test set forth in Anderson v. Celebrezze, 460 U.S. 780, 103 S.Ct. 1564. See Rainbow Coal. of Okla. v. Okla. State Election Bd., 844 F.2d 740, 747 (10th Cir.1988); Baer, 728 F.2d at 475. In Anderson, the Supreme Court determined that "[c]onstitutional challenges to specific provisions of a State's election laws ... cannot be resolved by any `litmus-paper test' that will separate valid from invalid restrictions." 460 U.S. at 789, 103 S.Ct. 1564 (quoting Storer v. Brown, 415 U.S. 724, 730, 94 S.Ct. 1274, 39 L.Ed.2d 714 (1974)). Rather, courts must follow a case-by-case balancing approach:

Id. The Supreme Court emphasized that "[t]he results of this evaluation will not be automatic" and that "there is `no substitute for the hard judgments that must be made.'" Id. at 789-90, 103 S.Ct. 1564 (quoting Storer, 415 U.S. at 730, 94 S.Ct. 1274).

To frame the issue before us in this appeal, it is prudent first to summarize the argument the Constitution Party made in its briefs. The Constitution Party never argued that summary judgment for the Secretary was improper as an evidentiary matter. Rather, the Constitution Party argued (A) that it has shown a "sufficient modicum of [political] support" under the criteria set forth in Baer to merit voter affiliation tracking, Aplt. Br. at 6; and (B) that the Secretary's asserted interests — e.g., "controlling fractionalism, avoiding voter confusion and reducing the administrative burden of regulating elections" — do not justify the Secretary's refusal to track voter affiliation with respect to the Constitution Party, id. at 7.

On the first of these points, regarding its political support, the Constitution Party argued in the briefs that "Baer is the controlling case law" that sets the "threshold" of voter support that is necessary "to be tracked in voter registration lists" — a threshold "lower ... than [the threshold] necessary to appear on an actual election ballot." Id. The Constitution Party contended that "the district court erred by replacing the factors in Baer with the statutory criteria Kansas has for defining [recognized] political parties." Id. at 19. It asserted that "it is time for this Court to hold that the Baer factors control whether... membership or affiliation [vis-à-vis any political entity] in voter registration databases should be tracked." Id. at 21.

On the latter point, regarding the Secretary's interests, the Constitution Party argued that "the burden on the state to track affiliation with unrecognized [`]parties['] is miniscule or even nil." Id. at 14 (capitalizations from heading omitted). However, the Constitution Party never made the argument that facts in the record do not support the Secretary's claimed burdens. Rather, it simply pointed to case law and made conjectures about the Secretary's concerns.

At oral argument, we inquired about the Constitution Party's presentation of its appeal, probing the nature and scope of its argument for reversal:

Oral arg. at 10:07-11:54 (emphases added) (with counsel proceeding to analyze Baer's applicability). And later, further clarifying the matter:

Oral arg. at 35:16-35:25 (emphases added).

Accordingly, in light of the Constitution Party's disavowal of evidentiary arguments, and more importantly the failure to assert that issue before the district court and in its opening brief, the question of whether reversal is warranted on account of insufficient evidence in the record supporting the Secretary's claimed burdens is not before us. See Perry, 199 F.3d at 1141 n. 13; Vaz Dos Reis, 606 F.3d at 4. Rather, the Constitution Party has directed us to address solely whether Baer — which the Constitution Party argues "is the Tenth Circuit's articulation of how the balancing test in Anderson v. Celebrezze is to be considered in voter affiliation cases," Aplt. R. Br. at 5 — compels reversal in this case.

II.

At this point, Baer must be explained. Baer dealt with a challenge brought by two small political entities in Colorado that did not qualify under Colorado law as (recognized) "political part[ies]." 728 F.2d at 472 (citing Colo.Rev.Stat. § 1-1-104(18) (1980)). The plaintiffs in Baer "allege[d] that [Colorado's] system creat[ed] unfair or unnecessary burdens on minority political associations in three respects." Id. One of the issues in that case involved a challenge similar to the one in this case: the plaintiffs claimed that Colorado's refusal to allow voters to indicate affiliation with entities not recognized as "political parties," as defined by state statutory law, unconstitutionally denied them information, enjoyed by official parties, about voter support. Id.

In Baer, as a preliminary matter with respect to that issue, we recognized that Anderson's balancing test provided the analytical framework for that constitutional question. See id. at 475. Then, implicitly recognizing that the plaintiffs' constitutional interests under Anderson were burdened, we proceeded to analyze the Secretary's arguments that its interests should trump those of the plaintiffs. See id. First, we addressed the administrative burden that would be posed if the Secretary were ordered to "permit and include in the [state's] computerized record a citizen's designation of its affiliation with either of the two plaintiff parties," and we concluded that the "record reflect[ed] that [such] burden ... would be merely nominal." Id. Second, we addressed the Secretary's non-evidentiary, slippery-slope argument that, if Colorado were required to record and track voter affiliation vis-à-vis any political entity, "it would be faced with the impossible task of sorting out" frivolous and insubstantial political parties. Id. We acknowledged that states have a substantial interest in preventing frivolous party registration, but we rejected the Secretary's argument by relying on the state-law precedent of McBroom v. Brown, 53 Colo. 412, 127 P. 957 (1912). See Baer, 728 F.2d at 475. We cited McBroom as "ha[ving] already provided a water mark which if followed prevents this burdensome result" of tracking party affiliation with any and every purported party, no matter how insubstantial. Id.

Pursuant to McBroom — in which the Supreme Court of Colorado was "construing a substantially identical predecessor section of the Colorado Code" that was at issue in Baer, 728 F.2d at 474 — Colorado's Secretary "need only permit such party designation in registering if [1] a political organization [as defined by Colorado's statutes] already exists in the State under its name, [2] has recognized officials, and [3] has previously placed a candidate on the ballot by petition." Id. at 475. Because the plaintiffs in Baer met McBroom's criteria (which were based on Colorado statutory law), we held that the Secretary could not refuse to permit registration with them. We "carefully" limited our grant of relief to those two plaintiffs, which qualified as "political organizations as recognized in McBroom" — the decision that, we said, provided the indicator under Colorado law of when a political entity had "demonstrate[d] some modicum of political organization and support," id. at 476, sufficient to avoid the classification as a "tiny fractional interests," affiliation with which the Secretary need not register, id. at 475. We concluded our opinion in Baer by "affirm[ing] the trial court's decision insofar as it requires the Secretary of State [of Colorado] to conform to the holding of McBroom and to permit supporters of [the plaintiffs] to designate that support on their voter registration forms." Id. at 476; see also id. ("[T]o the extent [the trial court's opinion] could be construed more broadly than our holding in this opinion, we disapprove it.").

Now, we must clarify the constitutional import of Baer — which has been interpreted in relatively disparate fashion5 — because the Constitution Party has rested its appeal on that decision. Baer's holding regarding tracking voter affiliation was a federal constitutional decision in a broad sense, but one in which, crucially, we resolved a particular sub-argument on state-law grounds. That is, broadly, Baer decided as a matter of constitutional law that the plaintiffs' constitutional rights had been burdened, and under Anderson, that injury outweighed the merely nominal corresponding burdens on the Secretary of Colorado to track affiliation with the plaintiffs. See 728 F.2d at 475. However, with respect to the Secretary's argument that granting relief to the plaintiffs would force the Secretary to track any and every self-proclaimed `party,' Baer rejected that proposition by relying on the state-statute-based criteria taken from McBroom. We said in Baer — having earlier emphasized the principle of constitutional avoidance, and having relied on McBroom as a state-law decision for the purposes of such avoidance, see id. at 474 — that "the Supreme Court of Colorado in McBroom has already provided a water mark which if followed prevents this burdensome result." 728 F.2d at 475. And later, we "carefully" confined our decision to the plaintiffs in that case, cautioning that our opinion was not to be construed too broadly. Id. at 476. Thus, Baer's specific holding as to what constituted a sufficient "modicum of political organization and support" did not announce a federal constitutional rule. Id. Rather, we simply held, there, that McBroom articulated state-law criteria for what elevated a political organization in Colorado above classification as a "tiny fractional interest," affiliation with which the state might have refused to track.6 Id. at 475.

III.

We may now address the Constitution Party's argument that Baer compels reversal as a matter of law in this case. We reject that argument for multiple self-sufficient reasons.

For one, the Constitution Party cannot rely on Baer to find legal error with the district court's conclusion that the Constitution Party failed to demonstrate a "modicum of support" under Kansas law and therefore was a "fractional interest[]," affiliation with which the Secretary need not track. App'x at 27. As discussed above, Baer's statement of what sufficed as a sufficient level of political support and organization in that case rested on Colorado law, and was never intended to establish per se criteria outside Baer's state-specific context. Therefore, Baer does not require us, as a matter of law, to find error with the district court's determination that the Constitution Party is a fractional political interest in Kansas, such that the Secretary need not track affiliation with it.

Moreover, even if we found legal error with the district court's reliance on Kansas's statutory standards rather than the McBroom-via-Baer factors in classifying the Constitution Party as a mere fractional interest, that alone would not compel reversal. Rather, there would remain the district court's conclusions regarding the Secretary's "interests in ... avoiding voter confusion, and reducing the burden of additional costs," id., which are independent of the Secretary's interest in controlling fractionalism, and which alone may have outweighed the Constitution Party's countervailing interests. But such balancing would require us to examine the evidence in the record of the parties' respective burdens and interests,7 and the Constitution Party has forsaken evidence-based avenues of reversal.

Finally, even assuming arguendo that "the Baer test" were applicable and dispositive in this case as the Constitution Party argues (without merit), the Constitution Party fails to pass that very test. The Constitution Party repeatedly argued that entities that do not qualify as recognized political parties may nevertheless demonstrate sufficient political support and organization as to earn affiliation-tracking privileges by meeting the Baer factors. However, notwithstanding the Constitution Party's single bald assertion in its briefs that it "satisfies th[ose] factors," Aplt. Br. at 7, it is apparent that Constitution Party actually does not. The three McBroom criteria cited in Baer for a modicum of support were: "[1] a political organization already exists in the State under [the would-be-tracked entity's] name, [2] has recognized officials, and [3] has previously placed a candidate on the ballot by petition." Baer, 728 F.2d at 475. However, judging from everything presented to us in this case, the Constitution Party has not previously placed a candidate on the ballot under the Constitution Party name, as required under the third criterion. The Court asked the Constitution Party at oral argument about this apparent, fatal flaw in its appeal:

Oral arg. at 31:53-32:18 (the Court then moving on to another topic). To be sure, Susan Ducey, a Constitution Party "supporter," ran for Congress in Kansas's Fourth Congressional District, but she did so as a candidate for the Kansas Reform Party. App'x at 9 ¶ 26. That is insufficient under the plain language of Baer. See 728 F.2d at 475. And it should be insufficient: Ducey's appearance on the ballot as a representative of another party does not demonstrate that the Constitution Party has a sufficient level of political support and organization to warrant voter affiliation tracking with respect to it. See id. at 475-76. Thus, even if this appeal turned on the Constitution Party's satisfaction of the McBroom factors cited in Baer, we still would not reverse.8

CONCLUSION

We conclude, confined to the legal theory on which the Constitution Party has rested its appeal, that reversal of the district court's grant of summary judgment to the Secretary is unwarranted. AFFIRMED.