A court-ordered Special Master and retired Arizona Superior Court Judge Skelly disclosed that 37,657 pairs of signatures gathered in support of Proposition 140 are, in fact, duplicates. An Arizona group was trying to get the citizens to vote on rank-choice voting. However, when an impartial judge checked over the signatures needed to place the initiative on the ballot, he found numerous errors. Therefore, not enough signatures were actually acquired, and the initiative will Not be on the ballot.
What Happened?
Arizona’s Make Elections Fair Pac attested that they had gotten sufficient signatures for rank-choice voting to be on the November ballot. However, the Arizona Free Enterprise Club asked for the check. The initiative is removed from the ballot after the duplicates were found.
Rank Choice Voting
This is when a state has a primary election. Only the top winners go on to the general elections, indiscriminately of the party. For Example, if six Republicans run and two Democrats run for office, the Republican vote will be diffused among six people, allowing the two Democrats to take the most votes; thereby, only Democrats go to the general elections.
What Does This Have To Do With Missouri?
Missouri does consider rank-choice voting. Missouri also has groups that do not like to go through our elected legislators, knowing their will will not come to pass. So they, too, get ‘required’ signatures for ballot presence. This happened for Medicaid expansion, marijuana legalization, minimum wages for law enforcement, and so forth. Now, a group is trying to legalize abortion in Missouri, although it is against our Constitution. That initiative is having trouble in the courts right now for other reasons.
While we do not live in Arizona, we can learn from them and try not to make the same mistakes.
