If you've ever wanted to vote 'none of the above,' this election reform is for you

On Tuesday, the long-awaited drive begins to put an initiative on next year’s ballot — one that is sure to horrify and panic the far-right crowd that controls the Arizona Legislature.

Also, the far-left crowd that just wishes it did.

As for everybody else? Cue the hallelujahs.

The Make Elections Fair initiative could fundamentally change Arizona politics. Imagine creating a system in which the state’s leaders are actually representative of the state’s voters.

Voters could create a single open primary

If you are one of those people who looks at the choices on the November ballot and thinks “none of the above” …

If you wonder why we have leaders who obsess about election conspiracies and drag queens and such while the state’s real problems go largely unaddressed …

Then this proposal is for you.

The proposed constitutional amendment would scrap our current partisan primary system — the one that allows the two major parties to dictate our choices come November — and replace it with a single open primary.

One in which every candidate would play by the same rules and every voter would have an equal voice.

That just makes sense in a state where independents now outnumber both Republicans and Democrats.

Foes want to run a competing measure

Yet independents who want to run for public office now must collect six times the number of signatures as Republican or Democratic candidates.

And independent voters, the few who even bother to participate, are forced to choose between a Republican or Democratic ballot.

Under the Make Elections Fair proposal, it would be up to the governor and Legislature to decide how many candidates move on to the general election. But if it’s more than two for a single office, voters would rank their choices come November.

The Arizona Freedom Caucus is so appalled by the prospect that it voted earlier this year to put its own proposed constitutional amendment on next year’s ballot — one aimed at protecting partisan primaries.

Open primaries, after all, mean candidates must appeal to a broader range of voters if they want to win.

No wonder Team MAGA is terrified

The Make Elections Fair committee, which comprises Republicans, Democrats and independents, must collect 383,923 valid voter signatures by July 3 to make the 2024 ballot.

Republican political consultant Chuck Coughlin says they’ve already raised $4 million of the $6.5 million they’ll need to get there.

“It is the most significant electoral reform that we can possibly do,” Coughlin told me. “The problem today is that 80% of legislators and congressmen, the core basis of our political culture, get elected in partisan primaries where there’s no competition. 

“They do not care about general election voters because the system doesn’t require them to care. I want to make sure they have to compete for their seat.”

Are elections unfair?How to change the perception

I picture state Sen. Wendy Rogers, collapsing in a dead faint.

Under an open primary system, Rogers could wind up facing a more traditional Republican in a general election rather a Democrat who has no chance in her heavily Republican district.

Naturally, Team MAGA is terrified.

GOP could still run its own primary

Cue Rep. Austin Smith, R-Wittmann, who wrote the Legislature’s competing 2024 ballot proposal — the one that protects the status quo.

“Lobbyists and washed up politicians are trying to bring open primaries to Arizona,” he fumed on Monday. “Our election system is not ‘fundamentally unfair’. Legal male and female citizens, all races and socioeconomic status can vote in the state of Arizona … .

“I encourage all my Republican colleagues in the @AZHouseGOP and @AZSenateGOP to vocally oppose the Make Elections Fair Arizona scam. Do not sign the Make Elections Fair Arizona petition. Reject this ploy to destroy your right to vote in a party primary.”

Why are election kooks:In charge of hearing election bills?

Actually, there’s nothing in the Make Elections Fair proposal that would prevent Republicans or Democrats from holding their own party primary if they want to make clear their choices before the state’s open election.

They’d just have to run it and pay for it.

Make Elections Fair would do just that

More likely, they’re just afraid of what happens when they have to face the will of the entire electorate — when people realize that the will of the majority has long since fallen by the wayside, the victim of a two-party system that voters are abandoning.

The hard right that now controls the Republican Party doesn’t dominate because they are the choice of Arizona voters.

They dominate because the primary election system is rigged, with a little help from gerrymandered districts, so that nearly two-thirds of the state’s voters don’t matter. 

Independents are the fastest growing segment of voters, yet our two-party primary system is designed to mute their voices. 

Make Elections Fair would change that.

Bring it on.

Reach Roberts at laurie.roberts@arizonarepublic.com. Follow her on X, formerly Twitter, at @LaurieRoberts.

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