• “The Make Elections Fair Arizona Act is intended to ensure that all voters are treated the same and all candidates for an office compete according to the same rules. The voters of Arizona, 49% of whom are not registered with the two major political parties, should be able to freely vote for any candidate they want without having to choose a party ballot, and elected officials should be accountable to a broader swath of voters in their district. It’s past time to adapt - we need to make elections fair for all and achieve the representation Arizonans deserve. With independent and unaffiliated voters now accounting for the largest part of the Arizona electorate it’s illogical to confine voter choices in the primaries to the very parties they’ve chosen to separate from. Let all candidates compete, let the voters decide and let the best candidates win.” - Sarah Smallhouse, Chair, Make Elections Fair Arizona 

• “Our current “open” primary system is anything but open. Any voter can only see one-half of the available candidates: Republican voters only see Republicans, Democrats only see Democrats, and independent voters (34% of the electorate) can only see candidates from one legacy party per their designation. This system disenfranchises many voters, with the exhausted majority failing to participate in the primary elections. This puts the decision of who appears on the general election ballot in the hands of 10% of each party--who tend toward the political extremes. Once elected, these candidates are unlikely to work across the aisle for fear of being perceived as weak, and being “primaried out” by an even more extreme candidate in the next election cycle. And so, we are doomed to have progressively more polarized elected officials as time goes on. Open, non-partisan primaries can change that. By having all candidates appear on one primary ballot—regardless of party affiliation—voters have a choice of candidates that reflect a broader range of positions than the strict doctrines of the legacy parties. This will lead to ALL candidates being more responsive to the majority of Arizonans, and lead to better governance.” - Arizona Forward Party 
  

• “Right now, our primary election system favors extreme voices within the parties and creates added hurdles for independent voters and their voices. This structure discourages moderate points of view leaving voters to decide between extreme candidates and agendas. This incentivizes candidates to only listen to the narrow interests of highly partisan primary voters. Proposition 140 would require ALL candidates to appear on the same ballot and compete under the same rules in a single primary, regardless of party. All registered voters would use that same ballot to cast their vote. - Prohibit using taxpayer funds to pay for private political party primaries. This is a common-sense solution that will moderate the partisanship that s been stifling progress on policy issues like school funding, voucher accountability, abortion care, affordable housing, water and environmental policy, and other important issues.” - Arizona Public Health Association  
  

• “The “Make Elections Fair Arizona” ballot initiative is exactly what it says it is; it will change our partisan election system so that voters have more choice, and candidates will have equal qualifying requirements regardless of party affiliation. Even though all taxpayers foot the bill to run our elections, the current system doesn’t allow voters to select from the full slate of qualified candidates in a primary election. The outcome of most elections is decided in the primary, usually by a very small percentage of registered voters. Even within the traditional parties, primary voters must select from among a slate of either all Democratic or all Republican candidates. An Independent voter can’t participate in an Arizona primary unless they select either a Democratic or Republican ballot. This partisan structure alienates voters of all stripes and often results in the election of people representing the political extremes rather than the majority of taxpaying citizens within their districts. Make Elections Fair gives Arizona voters more choice than the current, partisan system.” - Perri Benemelis, Editor, Arizona Independent Voter's Network 
  

• “Let’s start with the idea that Arizona elections are open – they are not. A partisan election system that creates barriers to participation and treats certain voters and candidates differently – particularly independents or those who choose not to affiliate with a party is surely not a system that works for every Arizonan. Arizona’s current partisan primary provides taxpayer funds to private political party activities and excludes registered unaffiliated candidates from participating in the primary election. Until our system encourages broader voter turnout and equal treatment of candidates, it will continue to support tiny minorities of voters deciding the outcome of elections.” - Save Democracy Arizona 
  

• “Prop 140 is a sprawling, multi-page amendment to our constitution that imports a California election scheme into Arizona that will confuse voters, make ballots longer, delay tabulation results for several weeks, and will result in votes being tossed out due to simple errors. Jungle Primaries and Ranked Choice Voting have been tried in California already. Since its adoption it has led to candidates from only one political party appearing on the general election ballot, depriving many voters of any choice at all. And Ranked Choice Voting has led to weeks long delays in tabulation, sometimes even resulting in the wrong person being declared the winner. Worst of all, Prop 140 puts all power into the hands of just one politician, the Secretary of State, to decide how many candidates appear on the general election ballot for every race. The Secretary of State even gets to decide how many candidates he gets to run against in his own race! It doesn’t get any more unfair than letting a partisan politician decide how many opponents that he and his party will be running against. Prop 140 is confusing, undemocratic and constitutionally empowers a partisan politician to pick and choose which candidates we vote for in the General Election." - Scot Mussi, President, Arizona Free Enterprise Club
  

• “Introducing California-style elections in Arizona would be a disaster for our state. Prop 140 would result in long, confusing ballots, lead to even more delays in tabulating votes, and produce election results that do not reflect the will of the people. Prop 140 allows a single politician—the Secretary of State—to select which candidates would move from the primary to the general election. This consolidation of power is a tool of disenfranchisement that Arizonans who believe in free and fair elections should reject. It also may create scenarios under which different ways of voting could be required for different offices, rather than each election being decided the same way—by the simple “one person, one vote” system that has been the hallmark of our representative republic since its founding. Schemes like Prop 140 have led to candidates from only one party appearing on the ballot, leaving voters with no real choice in that election. The overly complicated way in which votes are counted, and then recounted, has led to the wrong candidate being declared the winner. This system offers more opportunities for partisan manipulation of our elections.” - Cathi Herrod, President, Center for Arizona Policy, and Greg Scott, Vice President of Policy, Center for Arizona Policy 
  

• “Prop 140 would import to Arizona some of the worst components of California’s election system like jungle primaries and Ranked-Choice Voting. Jungle primaries and Ranked-Choice Voting create an incredibly confusing and opaque process that is prone to errors. Two months after a 2022 California school board election using Ranked Choice Voting, it was finally discovered that votes had been incorrectly tabulated and the wrong candidate had been certified as the winner. Ranked-Choice Voting also disenfranchises voters. Ranked-Choice Voting forces voters to rank and cast a ballot for candidates they don’t support in order to ensure that their ballot is not discarded in the numerous rounds of vote tabulation. New York City used Ranked-Choice Voting for their 2021 mayor’s race, and it took eight rounds of tabulation to declare a winner. More than 140,000 voters were effectively disenfranchised due to “ballot exhaustion,” since they didn’t rank all the candidates. It’s as if those voters didn’t even cast a ballot, since their votes were not counted in the final vote total. Arizonans want an election system where it is easy to vote and hard to cheat. California-style jungle primaries and Ranked-Choice Voting only increase distrust, confusion and chaos in our election system.” - Nathan Duell, Arizona State Director, Heritage Action for America 
  

• “Prop 140 would allow the Jungle Primaries and Ranked-Choice Voting systems into Arizona’s elections despite evidence showing that these systems hurt the democratic process, especially for those over the age of 50 who have spent more than 30 years using the simple and effective one person, one-vote system. Our current system’s simplicity is its strongest feature; one person has one vote for one candidate for each open office. Ranked-choice voting does the opposite by forcing voters to choose multiple candidates, including some for whom they have little information, creating confusion. Ranked-choice voting is also more likely to lead to errors on the ballot, which creates systematic unfairness in the election. It also has been shown to delay the vote tabulation process increasing the potential for fraud. Ranked-choice voting is a complex system that will disenfranchise voters who are unfamiliar with how to rank their choices. It manufactures a majority by throwing out ballots and redistributing votes. Voters should be confident in their elections; ranked-choice voting degrades that confidence.” - Nikki Colletti, AMAC (Association of Mature American Citizens) Action 
  

• “Funded by out-of-state special interests, the ironically named “Make Elections Fair Act” imports California’s disastrous election system to Arizona. This measure would eliminate our system of “one person one vote” whereby the candidate with the most votes wins, and replace it with an arbitrary ranking system controlled by a single, partisan politician. The result would be an election scheme that reduces transparency, delays election results, and disenfranchises voters – particularly those registered as independents. Please preserve the integrity of our elections and vote NO on Proposition 140.” - Victor Riches, President & CEO, Goldwater Institute
  

Committees formed to SUPPORT Arizona Proposition 140, Open Primaries and Ranked Choice Voting (2024):

MAKE ELECTIONS FAIR

Selected Contributions TO: Make Elections Fair committee include:

• Open Primaries Now, Inc.
  
• S. Robson Walton
  
• David Tedesco
  
• Mary Bernal
  
• Robert Bertrand
  
• David Reese
• Francis Najafi Family Trust Dtd
  

Committees formed to OPPOSE Arizona's Proposition 140, Open Primaries and Ranked Choice Voting (2024):

NO COMMITTEE HAS BEEN IDENTIFIED TO OPPOSE THIS INITATIVE AS OF SEP 11, 2024.

Selected Contributions TO include:

• NA

• The best argument against ranked-choice voting is its track record. Supporters argue that the system ensures majority rule, but this is a false majority and only comes about after voters’ legal ballots are thrown in the trash. This has happened across the country in places like Alaska, Maine, Utah, New York City, and San Francisco. Ranked-choice voting diminishes voter confidence in a multitude of ways. It results in election winners losing and election losers winning. It forces voters to vote against their conscience, or even for their opponent, to ensure that their ballot does not end up in a landfill. Finally, because ranked-choice voting often guarantees multiple rounds of counting, elections results are delayed, which invites distrust and confusion." - Foundation for Government Accountability