On August 30, a Superior Court Judge in Phoenix will hear two cases on whether the top-two open primary has enough valid signatures to be on the ballot. One case was filed against election officials by proponents of the initiative. The other case was filed against election officials by opponents. The first case says the petition really has more valid signatures than election officials found. The second case says that election officials should not have counted petitions circulated by ex-felons. See this story.
The case filed by proponents is Open Government Committee v Bennett, cv2012-013089. The case filed by opponents is Save Our Vote v Bennett, cv2012-013094. They are both before Judge John Raya.
This top two crap is really taking hold out west. BAD news!
It is interesting that the sampling law was changed in 2011.
Before then, if the petition sample was close (95% to 105%) it was assumed to have qualified. That is, sampling error or questionable determinations of signature validity by election officials would not doom the effort.
Under California law it would be realized that it was unknowable whether or not such a close result had qualified. Under the new Arizona law, if it is estimated that the petition will fall short, it is assumed to have done so. This is contrary to the explicit language in the Arizona Constitution.
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