An open primary could help better candidates win in Arizona. Oh, the horror
Article shared by Cathy L. Stewart on August 14, 2024 at 9:00 AM
Arizona's political players are trying every which way to block voters from deciding the Make Elections Fair initiative. Why are they so afraid of giving every voter an equal voice?
By Laurie Roberts, Arizona Republic - Originally published Aug. 12, 2024 on azcentral.com
The prospect of making elections fair in Arizona has the state’s powerbrokers breaking out in a cold sweat.
Allowing voters to scrap partisan primaries and replace them with a single open primary in which every voter has an equal voice and every candidate an equal shot?
Surely, this cannot be allowed.
Thus, comes their four-pronged bipartisan attack on the Make Elections Fair initiative.
Foes really don't want to Make Elections Fair
They’ve sued to knock it off the Nov. 5 ballot claiming it’s unconstitutional and they’ve sued claiming problems with the petitions to put it on the ballot.
In the event they can't keep it off the ballot, they’ve adopted a misleading description of the measure to send to every voter.
And, if all else fails, they’ve put a competing measure on the ballot, hoping to ensure that the state’s most partisan voters can continue to dictate our choices in the general election.
“The goal is to drain us of money … and they’re succeeding at that,” Chuck Coughlin, who is running the Make Elections Fair campaign, told me. “These extreme forces of the parties want to keep their stranglehold on the primaries, which only the most extreme candidates can win.”
The good news is, opponents are thus far 0 for 2 in the three court challenges.
Court shoots down 2 ballot challenges
The Arizona Free Enterprise Club sued, contending the proposal unconstitutionally makes several changes to state elections laws.
But on Friday, Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Frank Moskowitz ruled the Make Elections Fair Act does not violate the state constitution’s single subject rule, saying the changes are “sufficiently related to be considered a single purpose.”
Make Elections Fair would create one open primary for all voters.
Yet, the Legislative Council, a bipartisan panel that must approve an impartial summary of the proposal for the state's official publicity pamphlet, voted 14-0 to bury the explanation of what the bill actually does.
Don't fall for a bipartisan push: To protect parties' power
Instead, its summary leads off with a warning of what our leaders fear: Ranked choice voting.
But Make Elections Fair doesn’t mandate ranked choice voting. It merely allows it, should the Legislature and governor opt to use it.
The Make Elections Fair campaign challenged the legislators’ “impartial” summary and on Monday, Superior Court Judge Melissa Iyer Julian ordered a rewrite, saying the summary “reflects the use of an improper rhetorical strategy.”
“The analysis misleadingly suggests that, if the Initiative is enacted, the candidate who receives the most votes would no longer be declared the victor in ‘all’ Arizona elections,” she wrote. “As (Make Elections Fair) points out, this is inaccurate.”
If courts fail, they'll try to fool us about it
Meanwhile, a judge on Monday held a hearing on a lawsuit filed by three voters represented by a pair of Democratic attorneys. It’s not clear who’s footing the bill, but the goal is clear.
They’re hoping to invalidate a massive number of the nearly 600,000 voter signatures filed to get Make Elections Fair on the ballot. They’re claiming a variety of petition flaws that have nothing to do with the will of voters and everything to do with the will of the parties to maintain control.
If the courts deny voters the chance to decide Make Elections Fair, there’s always the chance to fool us into rejecting it.
The GOP-run Legislature voted last year to put a competing constitutional amendment on the Nov. 5 ballot, one aimed at protecting partisan primaries.
“They’re trying to change the primary system in Arizona because they don’t want conservatives winning primaries anymore in red districts,” the bill’s author, Republican Rep. Austin Smith, said at the time.
Or put another way, because taxpayer-funded primaries shouldn’t allow the state’s most partisan voters to dictate our choices when fully a third of voters have deserted the two major parties.
An open primary would favor candidates who appeal to a broader range of voters.
Oh, the horror.
Reach Roberts at [email protected]. Follow her on X (formerly Twitter) at @LaurieRobertsaz and on Threads at @LaurieRobertsaz.