Arizona group wants to give the power to independents with open primaries

This November, Arizona voters will be given the chance to move their state away from semi-closed primaries and open them to all registered voters.

A referendum on the ballot from Make Elections Fair Arizona asks whether the current system, in which independents are forced to pick up either a Republican or Democratic ballot on primary day, is unjust. If approved, the referendum would reform the Arizona Constitution to do away with the current primary system and replace it with a single, open primary.

Chuck Coughlin, a longtime political consultant in the state who is running the campaign for Make Elections Fair Arizona, told the Washington Examiner the measure “permits every voter in every candidate to be treated identically, and any voter can participate in any election. Very much like how municipal races are run throughout Arizona today. Partisans and anybody can run and everybody can vote.”

If successful, rules would change for primary voting. On primary day, no matter what party affiliation one may have, all candidates would be placed on a single ballot. Candidates could choose whether or not to say what party they belong to or not say at all. Some local elections in Arizona, notably for mayoral elections, already run on a nonpartisan basis, in which candidates do not list affiliation but rather explain their ideas.

“It doesn't matter if you get a majority in the primary, you're going to have a general election,” Coughlin said. “Because we want that candidate to be in front of a majority of the voters, and want them to participate because a majority of the voters showed up in the general election.”

The ballot organizers have left it up to the state legislature to decide what happens if more than two candidates advance to the general election. It could be ranked choice voting, or the legislature could decide to cap the number of candidates at two.

“The Make Elections Fair Act will require that everybody runs in a competitive general election: That could be a Democrat running against another Democrat or Republican against another Republican,” Coughlin said. "It could be an independent running, but you know, it's no longer ‘we'll be able to win a race outright in a primary.’"

Arizona’s voter registration is largely split three ways: There are 1.4 million registered Republicans, 1.4 million registered independents , and 1.2 million registered Democrats. Young Arizonans are registering themselves less and less with either party.

“We have a whole generation of young people who don’t belong to one of the parties, and they have no interest in joining the parties,” said Thom Reilly , co-director of the Center for an Independent and Sustainable Democracy and a professor in the School of Public Affairs at Arizona State University.

“The defining feature of independents is that candidates and issues, not party loyalty, drive their choices,” Reilly added.

Arizona independents face hurdles, whether that be as a candidate or as a voter. Independent voters must pick up either a Democratic or Republican ballot when voting in the primary, preventing them from voting for different parties in different races.

Independent candidates must gather up to six times the number of signatures compared to candidates with a partisan affiliation. An independent candidate would need to gather 43,492 signatures to make the ballot, compared to Republicans, who need 7,378, and Democrats, who need 7,035.

The group also believes this ballot measure would make Arizona’s elections more competitive. According to the Hill , half of all general election races for the state legislature in the 2022 midterm elections were uncontested or won easily. Less than a quarter were deemed competitive to begin with.

“The vast majority of Republicans and a vast majority of Democrats are all elected in primaries, where there's only 30% of voters participating, so that's their only customer,” Coughlin said.

Arizona often splits its tickets at the ballot. In 2016, the same year former President Donald Trump won Maricopa County and the state, Maricopa County voters ousted longtime conservative Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who had occupied the role since 1997.

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“I’m fond of saying we are State 48 for a reason,” Coughlin said. "Still behave like that, totally young kid in the room that wants to create chaos and create differences and so, this ballot initiative reflects Arizona's attitude because we're not we're not married to one side or the other.

“We just want good candidates who have good answers, and so that's what hopefully we'll get out of this,” Coughlin concluded.