PHOENIX - On paper, supporters of creating a system of nonpartisan primaries in Arizona are financially crushing the opponents.
But newly released reports may hide the spending that is yet to come.
The latest campaign finance reports show Make Elections Fair has collected nearly $10 million to convince voters to support Proposition 140.
By contrast, the No on 140 committee lists just $5,000 in donations.
Only thing is, Make Elections Fair had to spend more than $6.5 million just to gather signatures to out the issue on the ballot. And then there was another $63,446 - at least as of the end of September - in legal fees to fight of challenges trying to keep the measure off the ballot, expenses that continued into October.
Still, the committee reported it had about $1.1 million in the bank as of the last report.
And the No on 140 committee?
There's no real money because it really didn't exist until supporters of the measure submitted their petitions. And there was little reason to spend money on advertising and commercials until the Arizona Supreme Court concluded on Oct. 4 that the initiative was entitled to be on the ballot.
Those ads now are running. But the spending for them does not have to be reported until Oct. 26 - weeks after early voting already has started.
There were legal fees incurred by foes trying to keep Prop 140 from going to voters. But those dollars were spent by other groups opposed to the initiative, like the Arizona Free Enterprise Club, and are not included on campaign finance reports.
Supporters have lined up a laundry list of organizations in support ranging from the Tucson Metro Chamber of Commerce and the Grand Canyon Institute to the Greater Phoenix Urban League and the Grand Canyon Institute.
But the largest donations came from two individuals with ties to the Tucson-based Thomas R. Brown Foundations. That includes $1.5 million from Mary Bernal, a trustee of the foundation, and Sarah Smallhouse, president of the foundation and chair of the Make Elections Fair Committee, who gave $950,000.
On the other side, that initial $5,000 came from the Arizona Free Enterprise Club. But it is expected to kick in a lot more.
Other foes, whose views also align with Republican interests who are in opposed to the ballot measure, include the Goldwater Institute and Turning Point Action.
But the opposition is across party lines.
Several individuals aligned with Democratic interests had united with the Free Enterprise Club in that unsuccessful lawsuit to keep Prop 140 off the ballot. And even Tucson Mayor Regina Romero a Democrat, is urging people to vote against it.
"If Proposition 140 passes, it will amend our constitution, it will create confusion and more complicated ballots,'' she told Capitol Media Services. "Proponents of this proposition claim it will lead to fair elections, but in reality it will cause chaos, mistrust and make it harder for candidates of color to represent their communities.''
Tucson is the only city that currently has partisan elections. Prop 140, if approved, would overrule that.
As crafted, all elections for federal, state and local elected offices would have to be run as nonpartisan affairs. All candidates from any party, as well as political independents, would run in a single primary, and all registered voters could choose among all the candidates.
What happens after is a bit more complicated - and is what is generating concerns about creating complications.
The Legislature could decide to allow only the top two vote-getters to advance to the general election. But lawmakers also could permit up to five.
That would require creating a system where voters rank their choices on a preference scale. Then if no candidate got at least 50% on the first counting, the ballots of those whose first pick got the fewest votes would be re-tallied, this time using each of those voter's second choices.
And if that still didn't produce a clear winner, the process would be repeated, dropping the lowest-tallying candidate and recounting the ballots until there was a clear winner.
What else the initiative says is that if lawmakers fail to act, the decision on how many get on the general election ballot falls to the secretary of state - currently Democrat Adrian Fontes.
The Goldwater Institute has seized on all this, arguing that Prop 140 "seeks to impose a radical, convoluted scheme of ranked choice voting and jungle primaries on Arizonans.''
But supporters say it is better than the current system.
The big flaws they say show up in legislative or congressional districts where one party has an overwhelming voter registration edge over the other. The net result is that the nominee of that party, who may have appealed to the fringe elements to survive a primary, becomes a shoo-in with no meaningful opposition in the general election.
By contrast, the argument is that Prop 140 would require candidates to appeal to constituents across the political spectrum to survive the primary.
It could, however, lead to situations where a general election runoff ends up between two candidates of the same party –
or even two political independents.
The initiative would do something else: end the discrimination against independent candidates.
They currently need to get more signatures on nominating petitions to get their names on the general election ballot than do those affiliated with recognized political parties. That would end if the initiative passes.
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