PHOENIX, ARIZONA – In a major development with the signature challenge over Proposition 140, the special master reviewing the duplicate signatures determined that 99% of the 38,000 signatures reviewed were, in fact, duplicates. This determination from the court-ordered expert will now place Proposition 140 thousands of signatures under the constitutionally required signature threshold to qualify for the ballot.
Proposition 140 is seeking to enact a California-style election scheme built around ranked-choice voting and jungle primaries.
“As we knew all along, Prop 140 lacks the signatures required for this measure to even make it to the ballot in the first place, let alone be considered by voters in November,” said Scot Mussi, President of the Arizona Free Enterprise Club. “Even though they knew about the illegitimacy of these duplicate signatures, the special interests behind this initiative attempted to run out the clock on this challenge through obstruction and delay. They were caught, and now we hope the court does the right thing and enjoin the measure from tabulation in the fall.”
With the removal of the duplicate signatures, Prop 140 fails to meet the minimum signature threshold by over 3,300 signatures, which is determined by a statutory calculation that has been in place for over 25 years. This calculation was reviewed and upheld by the Arizona Supreme Court in Mussi v. Hobbs (2022).
Of the nearly 40,000 duplicates that were included when the Prop 140 Committee submitted their signatures to the Secretary of State, around 250 people had signed five or more times. One individual had signed 15 times. All those signatures were included in the final tabulation by the Arizona Secretary of State and challenged in state courts.
Last month, the Arizona Supreme Court ruled that the signature challenge lawsuit against Proposition 140, which was facing a potential deadline due to the printing of ballots, could continue to ensure that the nearly 40,000 duplicate signatures were examined and removed from the finally tally to determine if the measure had the constitutional minimum signatures needed to qualify for the ballot.
The next hearing in the case is Wednesday in Maricopa County Superior Court.
Read the Special Master Report here.
See exhibit showing duplicates of people who signed 5 or more times here.
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