Our system of voting may not be flawless but beware of so-called “solutions,” especially when they sound too good to be true – and in this case, are too convoluted to follow. That is the Jungle Primary and Ranked Choice Voting scheme known as Prop 140.
Prop 140 promises to ‘make elections fair’ but, contrary to the title, there is nothing fair about it. Rank Choice Voting and Jungle Primaries are tactics of the Left that promise to include all, but often result in one-party-only choices, and often one-party-only wins – even when another candidate won the plurality of votes.
Big Red Flags
One partisan politician, the Secretary of State, decides who moves to the general election, including in his or her own race
- Confusing and lengthy ballots
- Leads to one-party-only choices on the ballot
- Delayed tabulation and delayed results
- Disenfranchised voters
- Results that don’t reflect the will of the voters
- Opens opportunities to partisan manipulation
Prop 140 style plans 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. And the system offers more opportunities for partisan manipulation of our elections.
Prop 140 opens primaries to all voters, which means like-minded voters are not choosing their representative candidate in the general election, but other voters have say in who will represent you and your party. For example, if party A has an incumbent that will easily move to the general election, those voters can vote in droves for a weaker, less popular party B candidate in the primary election to ensure their candidate has an easier win.
The Ranked Choice Voting portion of Prop 140 involves a list of several candidates that voters are asked to rank in order of preference. One problem stems from the tabulation process where candidates that don’t make the cut are dropped off and another round of tabulations begin – But this happens without transparency.
Also, if a voter doesn’t rank all of the candidates, his or her ballot is thrown out after the choices run out. This means only some voters actually participate in the final vote, and the candidate with the most overall first choice votes could end up the loser.
In a 2018 Maine U.S. House election, the Republican who won the most first-choice votes ended up losing to a Democrat after the second round of reallocating votes and eliminating 8,000 votes.
A 2015 study revealed that out of 600,000 votes cast using RCV in four local elections in Washington State and California, the winner in all four elections did not win a majority of the total votes casts.
At a time when trust is low and election integrity crucial, amending Arizona’s Constitution to switch to a confusing and un-transparent process that reduces accountability and opens the door to voter manipulation is an especially bad idea.
Listen here to former AZ Supreme Court Justice Andy Gould debate the proponent of Prop 140 on AZ Horizon.
The Arizona Free Enterprise Club filed suit challenging the legitimacy of Prop 140 after an audit found nearly 40,000 signatures were duplicates. Still, the Arizona Supreme Court ruled the measure will stay on the ballot. AZFEC President Scot Mussi said, “Our organization proved that the special interest groups attempting to hijack Arizona’s elections systems lacked the minimum number to qualify for the ballot to even be considered by voters in November. The special master in this case also ruled that 99% of the signatures in question should be disqualified. The committee behind the measure was aware of the duplicates, yet they obstructed and delayed the review of the duplicate signatures for over a month.” Read AZFEC’s analysis of Prop 140 here.
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ICYMI:
- Read here a local woman’s personal perspective on Prop 139 proponents’ false claims about miscarriage treatment.
- Read here what an Arizona OB GYN thinks about the dangers of expanding abortion under Prop 139.
- Read here how the Colorado Supreme Court avoided vindicating baker Jack Phillips in a bogus lawsuit against him. The Court threw out the case based only on a technicality.
- Read here how Prop 136 would protect Arizona’s ballots from unconstitutional measures.
- Read here how AZ Attorney General Kris Mayes’ war on pregnancy resource centers is a threat to life and truth.