The Arizona Supreme Court has overturned a lower court’s ruling that the Jungle Primary or Open Elections Initiative is unconstitutional. The ruling will allow the initiative to be on the November ballot if supporters have collected enough valid signatures.
Maricopa County Superior Court Mark Brain found that the initiative’s ban on public funding for electing party officers went too far.
The Supreme Court offered no explanation for their ruling. They denied the request for oral arguments.
Now the Jungle Primary supporters must wait to see if the organization collected enough valid signatures to appear on the ballot. They collected 365,486 signatures and need 259,213 to qualify for the ballot. According to various sources, they currently have an invalid rate of over 20 percent.
The “two-tier” or “jungle primary” system requires candidates for office from both parties to run in a single primary.
Save Our Vote filed the lawsuit against the “top two” or “jungle primary” for violating the Arizona Constitution’s “single-subject” rule.
The Arizona Legislative Council had advised legislators that the “The proposition leaves to future Legislatures and governing bodies a number of issues, including who will have access to the statewide voter database, how vacancies will be handled, what percentage of votes will be set each year as the number of petition signatures required by each candidate for each office to qualify for the ballot, how to pay for the two tier election and how to pay for the cost of implementation and conforming legislation. The Department of Justice must pre-clear any changes.”