Arizona : Apna Punjab Media : A Maricopa County judge ruled Arizonans can vote in November on a measure to ban partisan primary elections in the state after opponents filed a lawsuit claiming the campaign backing the measure failed to collect enough signatures to qualify for the ballot. The measure, if approved by voters, would create an open primary system in Arizona, allowing voters to select a candidate of their choosing, regardless of party affiliation. The Make Elections Fair campaign collected 584,124 signatures to put Proposition 140 on the ballot, above the 383,923 required by state law. But a check of random samples by election officials found 409,474 of those signatures were valid. And then a retired judge appointed by the court to review additional signatures challenged by Prop. 140’s opponents invalidated over 37,000 duplicate signatures collected by the campaign, which could have dropped it below the number it needed to go before voters.
But Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Frank Moskowitz dismissed the case anyway, finding the plaintiffs failed to prove their case before ballots went to the printer at the end of August. He further concluded that the calculation prescribed by state law that election officials used to initially invalidate that first tranche of signatures is flawed and double-counted some invalid signatures. “Applying the statutorily mandated ‘double counting’ of invalid signatures in this case would unreasonably hinder or restrict the Initiative and unreasonably supplant its purpose. … Doing so would undermine the integrity of the initiative process.”
Prop. 140 open primaries initiative will be on the Arizona ballot, judge rules
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