Arizona Supreme Court Clears Final Legal Hurdle for Open
Primaries Campaign
Just 31 days before the November
5th election, the Arizona Supreme Court ruled in favor of Make Elections Fair AZ’s Prop
140. Campaign Leader Chuck
Coughlin on the win:
“We’re finally free from the
courts and have the ability to free Arizonans from partisan primaries
and put elections back in the hands of the voters.”
It’s full speed ahead for the AZ
campaign now and the endorsements are flowing
in-including:
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US Voters,
Activists and Leaders Set to Rally for Open Primaries Ahead of
Historic Elections |
2024 is a historic year for
election reform. There
are 8 open primary campaigns on the ballot across the country in
2024: Alaska, Arizona,
Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, South Dakota and Washington D.C. The
national open primaries has been working for years to build this kind
of critical mass. It is the first time in US history that this many
statewide primary reform initiatives have been offered up in the same
election.
The rally is already generating a
lot of buzz with hundreds of people registering in advance–check
out coverage in IVN and The Fulcrum.
OP Senior VP Jeremy Gruber:
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Attend the Virtual Open Primaries
Rally on Monday, October 21st from 6pm to 7pm
ET. Bring your friends,
family and colleagues. Invite everyone you know to
attend the rally. We promise you will walk away with a deep
appreciation for the incredible work each of these campaigns has done
to give voters a powerful way to impact our political system this
November.
Forward Party Founder
Andrew Yang
and Open Primaries President John Opdycke are co-hosting and Unite America, Forward Party, Independent Voting, Independent Voting Network, Veterans for All Voters, Electoral Innovation Lab and Independent Veterans of
America are all
co-sponsoring the event.
You will hear from campaign
spokespeople and be able to directly engage with them and your fellow
attendees in a lively open Q and A. We’ll watch inspiring videos from
key campaign states and you will learn how you can help by making
donations, sending letters, talking to friends, etc. Plus...a special guest or
two?!
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New York Voters are Declaring their Independence in Record
Numbers
According to the most recent
registration data, 1 in 4 voters in New York state do not belong to a
party. As the Times Union reports:
“In 2020, it became the first
year since 1961 that unaffiliated voters outnumbered Republican voters
in New York, state Board of Elections data shows. That year there were
about 5,000 more unaffiliated voters than Republicans across the
state; as of this month that margin has surged
to about 302,000 statewide”
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The data shows that despite a recent dip in
voters, every county in NY reported an increase in unaffiliated voters
between the 2012 presidential election and this month.
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ALASKA: Great new piece out in the Anchorage Daily News that makes
the case why Alaskans shouldn’t go back to the old way of doing
things: “remember how
impossible effective governance was under the old system, how bad the
closed primary system was for representative government, and how
little control we the electorate had in the decision-making process
before we had open primaries and RCV.”
COLORADO: New
Opinion piece: “With Proposition 131, open primaries can make Colorado’s
gold-standard election system platinum.” Amber McReynolds (Independent and Former
Director of Elections for Denver) and Toni Larson (Two-time President
of the League of Women Voters Colorado) have a new piece calling on
Coloradans to embrace Prop 131:
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FLORIDA: Another
letter to the editor in
Florida calling out
Florida’s backwards and fraudulent closed primary loophole and
encouraging readers to vote NO on Amendment 1 which would create
partisan primaries for local school board elections.
IDAHO: In a new piece out in the Idaho
Statesman, Rep. Russ
Fulcher is on the record that he’s unwilling to debate in the leadup
to the general election: “I’m not afraid to debate, but I’m not stupid either. They’re
going to have to do their own campaigning.” In Idaho’s closed primary system there’s no
incentive for Fulcher to debate or campaign–securing the primary is
all he had to do which is why Idahoans for Open Primaries’ Yes on 1
campaign could be a
game-changer if it passes this November.
NEVADA: Question 3
(Open Primary + RCV system) passed 53% to 47% in 2022– it needs to
pass once more this year to go into effect in 2026. Check out
this helpful breakdown on Question
3 in the Nevada Current on
what Question 3 wants to achieve, why it’s time Nevada embraces
nonpartisan elections and why the parties are resisting.
WASHINGTON DC: Chris Stirewal, contributing editor at The Dispatch and senior
fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, wrote a new piece on why Make Elections Count DC Initiative
83 is the reason he’ll be voting this year:
“Here’s a chance to vote for
something that may itself help foster more dispassionate governance.
The proposal is to open D.C.’s primary elections to independents,
something useful in a one-party jurisdiction.”
National: Don't
forget to check out Nick
Troiano, ED of Unite America, on MSNBC’s Morning Joe this week as he offers a national
perspective on the open primaries movement and what’s at stake this
November.
Have a great weekend,
The Open Primaries Team
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