According to this interview with reporter Jeremy Duda, there will be an initiative in 2016 in Arizona to convert all elections (except president) to non-partisan elections, although the wording is still not public. Duda says specifically that there will be no party labels on the primary ballot, and he implies there won’t be any party labels on the ballot in November either.
Ballot Access News
Edited By Richard Winger
I do not believe that nonpartisan elections for state-wide offices, legislature or Congress is a good idea. The party la labels do to some extent provide a voter with an inkling of a candidate’s belief affiliations. A state-wide nonpartisan ballot would create confusion to the advantage of the wealthy (or those supported by wealthy parties, unions, PACs, or associations) who can purchase “name recognition.” Greens, Libertarians and other “lesser” parties would be denied even the ballot listing that they exist and offer alternatives.
Since the Republicans seem to be the dominant party in Arizona why would they allow this to happen?
Arizona has the initiative process, and if someone wants to get an initiative on the ballot, and can pay for paid circulators, the Republicans can’t stop it from getting on the ballot.
If the sponsors of this idea were thinking clearly, they would not include congressional elections in their initiative. No state has had non-partisan elections for Congress since before the invention of government-printed ballots. If the initiative were limited to just having a non-partisan legislature, the proponents could point to Nebraska and said it seems to work OK in that state.
More moronic stuff.
ALL legislative elections have partisan stuff — going back to ancient Greece and the Roman Republic.
See the party hack endorsements in the fraud NE legislature.
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P.R. and nonpartisan App.V.