Proponents of the Arizona initiative to impose a top-two system in that state have collected 100,000 signatures on their initiative petition, and are aiming for 300,000. If the petition succeeds, the November 2012 ballot will ask voters if they want to use a top-two system in Arizona. It is believed that California multi-millionaire Charles Munger, Jr., is providing much of the financial backing for the initiative, so there seems little doubt that it will qualify. The petition is due in July. Here is the text.
The petition says the name of the measure is “Open Elections/Open Government.” The proponents don’t label it “open primary” (as they do in California), because in Arizona, state law already guarantees that independent voters can vote in Democratic and Republican Party primaries for office other than President.
Two state representatives, Tom Chabin (R-Flagstaff) and Lynne Pancrazi (D-Yuma) have introduced the top-two initiative into the legislature. It is HCR 2050.
I don’t think anything will come of it. After all, it’s only getting on the ballot through big money backing. Besides, a November election will be more representative than the primary election that gave California Top Two.
Check out the campaign’s website! http://www.AzOpenGov.org. There’s a lot going on here in Arizona – become part of the movement!
P.R. and Nonpartisan App.V. REAL Reforms.
ONE election per cycle.
NO moron robot party hack primaries, caucuses and conventions.
Yep, glad I’m not in California anymore.
I attended the New York City Independence Party Organization’s 12th Annual Anti-Corruption Awards event in Dec. 2011.
The two honorees were Dr. Ted Downing, former Arizona State legislator and Larry Sakin, Entrepreneur, Philanthropist & Activist, the leaders of the Arizona Open Government Committee which is spearheading a 2012 ballot initiative for a Top-Two Open Primaries.
I had a number of questions about their ballot initiative: how they handled write-ins, how was ballot position decided, and how does a party maintain their qualifications.
One thing they did put into the initiative is all candidates would user the same process to get on the ballot.
I will be interested if this does increases the number of candidates and voters increased because of this change.
As in CA., IndependentVoting.org will take part in the effort.
#5, thanks for that information. The Arizona initiative increases the difficulty for candidates to get on the unified primary ballot. The California top-two law also did that. The number of minor party candidates in California who file for the June 2012 primary will probably only be about one-tenth as many as filed in 2010.
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Article VII, Section 10 of the Arizona Constitution will be changed to OPEN TOP TWO PRIMARY.
Of particular interest, considering California’s SOS misinterpretation of 8002.5 is:
“Voters Shall Be Permitted To State Their Party Preference (If Any) In Their Own Words On Their Voter Registration Form, And Shall Not Be Limited To Selecting From A List Of Recognized Parties Or Affiliations.”
“At The Time They File To Run For Public Office, Every Candidate Shall Have The Choice To Declare His Or Her Party Preference (If Any) As It Is Stated On Their Voter Registration Form, Up To A Maximum Of 20 Characters. That Party Preference (If Any) Shall Appear On The Candidate’S Nomination Petitions And On The Primary And General Election Ballots Using The Phrase “Registered As _________.””
There is nothing in the initiative that sets the number of signatures needed to get on the ballot. It simply says it has to be the same for all candidates.
If the number of 3rd party candidates does drop to 10% in California, it will be because of a deliberate legal strategy by the Libertarian Party, similar to what they employed in Washington.
#8, Prop. 14 and its implementing legislation increased the number of signatures in lieu of filing fee for members of qualified minor parties from 150 signatures, to 10,000 for statewide office, 3,000 for US House and State Senate, and 1,500 for Assembly. That is why the number of minor party candidates will drop drastically.
You’re right about the Arizona initiative not setting the number of signatures to get on a primary ballot. The first version of the initiative did do that, but I now see it has been amended. Thank you for pointing that out.
Why would they bother to run, when the chances of getting on the November ballot are slim and none?
The whole point of this legislation is to limit the November choices to the top two DemoPublicans. Everyone else will be basically eliminated from the ballot.
Being on the ballot as part of a large crowded field at a time when relatively few voters are paying attention is not much of a prize, so few will bother to do it.
And even the voters who want to let’s say vote for the Libertarian or Green candidate will have a harder time knowing who that is, when dozens of candidates – many of whom may not share those parties’ views at all – could be on the ballot under those labels.
This is terrible legislation and we can only hope it will go doubt in defeat both in the legislature and the ballot box.
Wow, what a piece of crap initiative.
The Top 2 alleged reform keeps spreading — NE, LA, WA, CA, now AZ (???)
Attention — ANTI-Democracy minority rule gerrymanders control ALL (or about 99 percent of stuff at least at the moment).
Perhaps the top 2 CA folks have a Model Election Law (with top 2 stuff being a part of such MEL) — to END the rule of the EVIL robot party hacks ???
#12, Nebraska does not have top two.
#9 How did Ross Mirkarimi qualify this past election? $4000 or 8000 in lieu of signatures is comparable to running for senate, and from a comparable population to running from the senate?
Actually, the filing fee was 4 times as high as running for senate.
For SF supervisor the filing fee is $500 or 1000 signatures. A supervisor district is less than 1/6 the size of an assembly district, but the filing fee is 1/2 as much, and the in lieu of signatures is 2/3 as much. In 2010 there were around 20 candidates in District 10, which is the poorest area of the city.
#13 Nebraska has Top 2 for its legislature.
#10 Why would someone go to the bother of registering as Libertarian or Green in order to run in an election when no one (according to you) is paying attention and they have no chance (according to you) of advancing to the general election.
How many local government nonpartisan regimes have top 2 primaries and manage to barely survive ???
ANY robot party hack gangs claiming that such local regimes are somehow UN-constitutional ???
Uh, Nebraska’s legislature is nonpartisan.
#18 Justice Scalia in California Democratic Party v Jones suggested a system where all candidates would run in the primary, and the Top 2 or some other number would qualify for the general election. He said that qualified parties might nominate candidates. He referred to this as a nonpartisan blanket primary.
Presumably, if the parties nominated the candidate, the party name would be on the ballot. So what make a primary “nonpartisan” is that it does not choose the nominee of the parties, but simply advances two or more candidates to the general election.
Nebraska, California, and Washington, and soon Arizona, hold non-partisan blanket primaries.