Arizonans Should Reject Prop 140’s Radical Voting Scheme

Prop 140, which will be on the 2024 general election ballot in Arizona, seeks to impose a radical, convoluted scheme of ranked choice voting and jungle primaries on Arizonans. This system has been a failure in many states, such as California and Alaska, and should not be used to dictate how elections operate in Arizona.

Prop 140 makes no less than eighteen amendments to the Arizona Constitution—a truly massive constitutional overhaul that will affect virtually every aspect of elections in Arizona. The most troubling change is the provision for “ranked choice voting.” This form of voting, which requires voters to rank every candidate on the ballot running for a particular office, is confusing, lacks transparency and, at times, can disenfranchise voters. Specifically, ranked choice involves a series of “elimination rounds” where candidates with the lowest number of votes are eliminated until one candidate receives 50% of the vote. Voters do not see the results of each elimination round; instead, each round is resolved by complex algorithms inside the vote-tabulating machine. And worse yet, if a voter fails to rank all of the candidates running for an office, and the tabulator “runs out” of candidates they ranked, the ballot is considered an “exhausted ballot”—and it is not counted for the final decisive round that determines the winner of the election. Ranked choice voting thus excludes thousands of voters from having their votes counted in the final round(s) in which actual winners are ascertained.

The proposition also creates several troubling constitutional conundrums. Perhaps most concerning is that Prop 140 will empower the Arizona Legislature to enact a form of “super statute” regarding general election rules (including rules for ranked choice voting) that cannot be altered for six years. Thus, Prop 140 would upend the fundamental, never-before-disturbed constitutional principle that all legislatures can amend the statutes of their predecessors. Worse yet, if the Arizona Legislature fails to enact any rules by November 1, 2025, Prop 140 alters the strict separation of powers in the Arizona Constitution by delegating the Legislature’s authority to the Secretary of State. And, like the Legislature, the Secretary’s new election rules cannot be amended — even by the Legislature itself — for six years.

Moreover, Prop 140 eliminates the requirement that parties’ nominees for city elections are determined by direct primaries. It would thus permit cities to exclude voters entirely from the nomination process and instead allow parties to select their candidates purely through backroom deals. And in some cities, where party nomination is tantamount to victory, Prop 140 would effectively render voters irrelevant.

Americans are understandably concerned about the current acrimony and division in politics. But rather than addressing this problem in a focused, thoughtful manner, Prop 140 takes a sledgehammer to the Arizona Constitution by imposing ranked choice voting and jungle primaries on Arizonans.

Andrew W. Gould is a Partner at Holzman Vogel and a former justice on the Arizona Supreme Court.