Posted by Cathy Stewart on March 28, 2016 at 3:15 PM

Amanda Melcher of Independent Voters for Arizona, testified today before the Arizona State Legislature Election Committee on the systemic failures of last Tuesday's presidential primary election. Below is her full testimony.

* * * 

Madame Chair, members of the committee:

I am Amanda Melcher, representative of Independent Voters for AZ.

As we’ve heard, last Tuesday’s debacle was influenced by many factors: lack of oversight from the Sec of State, lack of funding from the Governor and Legislature, and lack of planning from the County Elections Director. I am here to speak to a more fundamental and insidious issue: the willful suppression of the largest portion of the Arizona electorate.

Independent and unaffiliated voters are often presented as an apathetic, disinterested group.  As we saw Tuesday, this assumption is grossly ignorant of the realities on the ground. Thousands of independents did turn out, waited on lines for hours, only to be told they did not have the right to vote. This voter suppression impacts millenial voters----50.5% of registered Arizonans under 30 are independent, and deeply impacts the minority community as well, since 41% of Latino voters in Arizona are registered independent.

Those of us who choose not to identify with any of the recognized parties now are the largest bloc of voters in the state - 1.2 million people, or 37% of the electorate. This is not a fluke, nor a passing trend: not only are first time voters overwhelmingly choosing not to join a party, more experienced voters are actively disengaging with the parties they’ve so long identified with.

Just because we are disengaging from the parties does not mean that we want to disengage from the system. Independents want to vote; we want to have a voice and influence. But current law bars us, or else makes us jump through hoops. The Presidential Preference Election is especially egregious, as it is the only election in Arizona that is completely closed to unaffiliated voters.

The right to vote is a core value. The idea that one is NOT ALLOWED to vote is anachronistic and out of place in 2016. Any attempt to complicate the process of voting betrays the ideals of our nation.

For the past five months, Independent Voters for Arizona has forced the media and the state government-- from the Secretary of state to the legislature-- into a conversation about the fact that independents are being denied those rights.

We have drawn attention to the fact that, while we are all paying for this election, we are not all allowed to participate. Independents want more voting & more inclusion, and want our taxpayer dollars to work toward a full and robust democratic process.

We organized a campaign in which over 30,800 Arizonans sent letters and emails to the Republican and Democratic Party state chairs, urging them to open the primaries. It is within their power to do so, per Supreme Court ruling in the  Democratic Party of United States v. Wisconsin in 1980 and Tashjian v. Republican Party of Connecticut in 1986, wherein the right of parties to determine the makeup of their primary elections was affirmed. Both party chairs refused to do so.