Big Legal Wins for Campaigns in Arizona and Idaho 

ARIZONA: The Make Elections Fair AZ team won two big legal cases this week: 

1. A judge has ruled the initiative to create an open primary doesn’t violate the single-subject rule: "The initiative's provisions are sufficiently related to a common purpose or principle. That common purpose or principle and general topic is reforming candidate elections.''
2. And another Arizona judge has ordered a rewrite of a ‘misleading’ description for the 2024 open primary initiative agreeing with the Make Elections Fair AZ team that the Legislature's analysis focusing on the possibility of ranked choice voting without proper context would mislead Arizona voters.

IDAHO: The Idaho Supreme Court has dismissed ID Attorney General Raúl Labrador’s move to block Idahoans for Open Primaries initiative from being on the 2024 ballot: “As for the Attorney General’s assertion that the Initiative violates the Idaho Constitution’s one-subject rule, that issue will not be ripe for review, unless and until, Idaho voters approve the Initiative at the general election in November.”

These are important wins. But both campaigns will continue to face fierce opposition from party insiders desperate to maintain control over our elections. 

Speaking of Arizona, 1.4 million independent voters there are treated like second class citizens.  Why? Watch them explain in their own words in Let Us Vote’s latest video highglighting the campaign:

These voters are fed up, and they're taking action to change and better Arizona’s election process. 

Subscribe to the LetUsVote Youtube channel today to never miss a video and follow Make Elections Fair Arizona for the latest campaign updates on the ground in Arizona.

Major new analysis in Florida finds 2 MILLION Florida voters DISENFRANCHISED by write-in and ghost candidates just this year

BACKGROUND: In 1998 Florida voters approved an open primary amendment to the state constitution but in 2000, the state Division of Elections adopted a rule that required closed primaries whenever a write-in candidate qualified to run for an election.

This has led to both parties using the write-in loophole to commit legal voter fraud and suppress millions of Floridians every year. 

Florida Trident analyzed Florida candidate filing information and voter registration data from the state Division of Elections in all 67 county supervisor of elections’ websites in the state and  found that more than 2 million voters across Florida have been shut out from at least one state or local election this year because of the loophole in the Florida Constitution that allows write-in candidates to close primaries.

Ben Wilcox, research director for Integrity Florida, a nonpartisan research institute and government watchdog:

“Florida is infested with ghost candidates. They’re everywhere in local races [and state] legislative races. It’s just a real problem…they’re being used to manipulate elections.”

Our friends at Oklahoma United announced they’re proposing a top-two nonpartisan ballot initiative campaign.

They aim to have a ballot question ready for the gubernatorial general election in November 2026.

Tulsa Mayor G.T. Bynum, who has been a real champion of Oklahoma United’s efforts, told Tulsa World that a change in how Oklahoma’s primaries function is not only important because it “breaks down partisan silos so every person can vote for who they believe is the best candidate right from the start” but also because “competition in the marketplace of ideas, just like in any other field, only serves to improve the eventual outcome for the customer.”

Pat McFerron, a pollster and campaign consultant for Oklahoma United, said his polling shows Oklahomans support the top-two. The campaign hopes to finalize its ballot question language in the near future. Stay tuned!

COLORADO: According to recent affiliation figures from the Colorado Secretary of State, 48.5% of Coloradans are now unaffiliated. In fact since 2010, more than 800,000 voters in Colorado have left the two major parties and declared their political independence. This migration is a clear rejection from Colorado voters of the hyperpartisan antics of both major parties. As former Colorado Republican State Chairman Dick Wadhams points out in a new op-ed in the Denver Gazette:

"The first political party to recognize that Colorado is steadily moving toward a post-partisan future dominated by unaffiliated voters who reject the extremes of both parties will be the party that can win.”

SOUTH DAKOTA: In a surprise to no one–the Democratic party of South Dakota has joined the Republican party of South Dakota in opposing the open primaries ballot measure on the November ballot. South Dakota Open Primaries and Amendment H Leader Joe Kirby believes this is just further evidence that the parties are more concerned with holding power than empowering voters:

“Party bosses don’t like Amendment H because it would take political power back from them and return it to the voters where it belongs.”

Supporters from all political backgrounds including Rick Knobe (Independent & Former Mayor of Sioux Falls) and Drey Samuelson (Former Chief of Staff to Senator Tim Johnson) have spoken out and called this move by the Democratic party leadership what it really is: a move to maintain the status quo and ensure they have more of a say in South Dakota’s elections than South Dakotan voters. 

WASHINGTON: Washington Rep. Dan Newhouse, one of the last remaining Republicans in Congress to have voted to impeach Donald Trump has survived his primary challenge despite his party and the former President championing his defeat. The reason he was able to stand up to his entire party? Washington’s top two open primary system. Open, nonpartisan primaries not only enfranchise voters but empower politicians to act on behalf of their constituents rather than party leaders.

ICYMI: This week we hosted our latest Primary Buzz Discussion: Change the Incentives, Change the Game w/ Chloe Akers. 

We dug into Akers' efforts through her new group The Best of Tennessee to “restore complexity” to Tennessee politics and challenge Tennessee’s new “bona fide” voter law that seeks to intimidate voters out of participating in primaries. 

If you missed it you can watch the FULL CONVERSATION HERE.

We have some really exciting conversations planned for this fall that we can’t wait to share with you.

Stay tuned!

The Open Primaries Team