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New Report Concludes Prop 140 Gives Too Much Power To One Politician With No Real Benefit

October 20, 2024

By Staff Reporter |

A new report concluded that Proposition 140 — which seeks to establish ranked-choice voting and replace Arizona’s partisan primaries with open primaries — would empower the secretary of state more than voters in elections.

The Reason Foundation issued the report last week by its director of criminal justice policy, Vittorio Nastasi, several days after early voting began. (Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act voters (UOCAVA) were mailed their ballots near the end of September).

“Prop. 140 grants far too much power to the legislature or secretary of state by allowing them to determine how many candidates can compete in general elections,” said the organization. “The impact of Prop. 140 is, therefore, uncertain and could generate substantial conflict without any clear benefit.”

Arizona’s current primary elections restrict voters to voting within the primary election of their registered party; unaffiliated voters may change their registration leading up to the primaries in order to cast a ballot for their preferred primary election. 

Ranked-choice voting would do away with majority vote winners in general elections with more than two candidates in most races (and more than four candidates in Arizona House races). Instead, victors would be determined by voter rankings of preferred candidates. Without any majority winner, the ranking system determines the winner(s) by eliminating the lowest vote-getter and redistributing those votes to the other candidates based on those voters’ rankings. 

The report noted that Prop 140 doesn’t specify the number of candidates that would move on to the general election from the proposed open primaries, allowing either lawmakers to decide by November 1 (or the secretary of state thereafter) how many candidates move on to the general election.

The Reason Foundation’s report assessed that open primaries would violate the First Amendment. 

“Political parties are fundamentally private organizations with the right to set their own rules for nominating candidates,” said the organization. “To infringe on that right is to violate the freedom of association. No matter how large or powerful the two major parties may be, the government has no role in determining the process for their primary elections.”

The organization proposed that there were “better alternatives” to meet the problem of the exclusion of nonpartisan voters: allowing minor party candidates to participate in debates and redrawing gerrymandered districts. 

The Reason Foundation did side with ranked-choice voting, however. The organization said that the proposed voting method would remedy voter concerns of “wasted votes and spoiler effects” while improving opportunity for minor party candidates.

The Arizona Joint Legislative Budget Committee also issued an official fiscal impact analysis for Prop 140. The committee concluded that the proposition’s overall fiscal impact couldn’t be determined in advance due to necessary further action by state and local governments. In their review of the fiscal impact analysis, the Reason Foundation emphasized that administering elections would likely become more costly under Prop 140 by increasing the number of candidates on the general election ballot, changing the length of both sample and election ballots, and increasing the number of voters receiving a primary ballot. 

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