If you can’t get people to like your ideas, change the system. That’s the clear agenda behind the Prop 140 scheme that seeks to bring ranked-choice voting and jungle primaries to Arizona. And there’s no more hiding it.
At a recent news conference organized by the Prop 140 campaign, Kimber Lanning—founder and CEO of a group called Local First Arizona that wants to build “equitable” systems for Arizona’s businesses—let the mask slip. Lanning revealed that when other states have adopted the reforms included in Prop 140, they have been able to move forward on transformational ideas like climate action plans and providing driver’s licenses to illegal immigrants.
Wait. Aren’t ranked-choice voting and jungle primaries supposed to lead to more moderation in the government? That’s what the backers of Prop 140 continue to push. But since when did climate action plans and special benefits for illegal immigrants become moderate?
Therin lies the true motivations behind Prop 140. Liberal billionaires from Colorado and others states around the country are pouring millions and millions into Arizona to pass this initiative in an effort to turn Arizona blue. They envision a system anchored around ranked-choice voting and jungle primaries will put them in charge of the political and policy agenda here in Arizona.
And in their zeal for power and control, they don’t even recognize the underlying hubris and irony of their entire campaign. Anyone who talks to the donors, disgruntled consultants, politicians and special interests behind Prop 140, they are convinced that their “moderate” ideas represent a true majority of the electorate. They don’t even realize—likely because of their own self-righteousness—that they are the ones operating on the fringes of the policy arena.
So, when they boast about wildly unpopular ideas—like net zero climate action plans and benefits for illegal immigrants—it sounds normal to them. The problem isn’t them, of course. It’s those annoying voters that don’t like sky-high energy bills and open borders.
It’s all the more reason why Arizonans must resoundingly reject this absurd California-style election scheme on November 5th.
Prop 140 is a multi-page initiative that would inject 15 new amendments into our state constitution. And it has something for everyone to dislike. That’s probably why they needed 40,000 duplicate signatures to trick the courts into putting it on the ballot in the first place.
Prop 140 would give too much power to one partisan politician, the Arizona Secretary of State, to decide how many candidates qualify for the general election ballot for every single contest, including his or her own race. The centralization of power that this would create is not only unprecedented, but it’s a recipe for corruption and gamesmanship.
Prop 140 would also result in some races where candidates from only one political party appear on the general election ballot. This would deprive many voters of any choice at all—which is probably why many prominent Republicans and Democrats have come out against it
Additionally, this initiative would force voters to navigate two completely different voting systems on the same ballot, with some races requiring voters to rank candidates under a ranked-choice voting system and others that do not. Voters could go from one race where they are expected to rank 5 candidates to another race on their ballot where they vote for just one candidate. Up and down the ballot, voters would have to switch back and forth from one set of rules to another, with the rules being determined by the Arizona Secretary of State.
And to top it all off, Prop 140 would increase tabulation errors, create longer lines at the polls, and significantly delay election results—just like it did in Alameda County, California, for one example.
This is not what the people of Arizona want.
Let’s stop these out-of-state special interests from ruining our state and turning it into another California. Vote NO on Prop 140.
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