Jungle Primary initiative okayed for November ballot

A Maricopa Superior Court Judge ruled today that the Jungle Primary or Open Primary initiative will be placed on the November ballot.

Maricopa County Superior Court Judge John Rea ruled that Maricopa County elections officials were wrong in declaring hundreds of signatures of voters contained on the Jungle Primary initiative petitions invalid, ordering those signatures restored.

In a separate ruling, Judge Rea also dismissed a suit filed by the political committee opposing the initiative which argued that the petition process and signatures gathered by the campaign were faulty.

Since the Jungle Primary campaign filed petitions for the proposed constitutional amendment on July 5th, election officials in each of Arizona’s 15 counties carried out a statutorily-required validation process reviewing a representative sample of petition signatures. That process determines if the measure qualifies for the ballot.

While counties outside of Maricopa County reported an average validation rate that would have allowed the measure to easily qualify for the ballot, the rate reported by Maricopa County official was significantly lower. As the state’s most populous county, erroneous results in Maricopa County could have nullified the higher and more accurate numbers from all other counties combined.

In court, supporters of the measure provided signed statements by voters attesting that they did indeed sign the initiative petition, even though County officials claimed their signature on the petitions did not match their signature on their voter registration form. Other signatures were simply restored by the court after the campaign discovered and pointed out that, contrary to election officials, those individuals were indeed registered voters and listed on County records.

The proposed Open Elections/Open Government Act would do away with the current Primary elections in Arizona.

Voter turnout in this week’s Primary Election was 2.7 percent, critics of the initiative say the Jungle Primary initiative will further confuse and disenfranchise voters.

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