AZ Court Approves RCV Initiative Rife With Duplicate Signatures

On Friday, the Arizona Supreme Court ruled that votes cast for a pro-ranked-choice voting constitutional amendment in the 2024 election will count — even though nearly 38,000 signatures supporting the amendment proposal were duplicates.

In its decision, the Grand Canyon State’s high court rejected a challenge seeking to have votes cast for Proposition 140 voided after a lower court special master disclosed that 37,657 pairs of signatures gathered in support of the measure were duplicates. As previously argued by the Arizona Free Enterprise Club (AZFEC), the finding “place[s] Proposition 140 thousands of signatures under the constitutionally required signature threshold to qualify for the [November] ballot.”

Prop 140 would amend the Arizona Constitution by implementing an open primary system in which candidates of all parties run in the same primary. It also paves the way for the state to potentially adopt ranked-choice voting (RCV) for general elections.

Under an RCV system, voters are asked to rank candidates of all parties in order of preference. If no candidate receives more than 50 percent of first-choice votes in the first round of voting, the last-place finisher is eliminated, and his votes are reallocated to the voter’s second-choice candidate. This process continues until one candidate receives a majority of votes.

As The Federalist previously reported, the Arizona Supreme Court allowed a signature challenge to Prop 140 filed by several residents to move forward on Aug. 23. The high court stated that if it were determined that enough invalid signatures existed to disqualify the initiative from appearing on the November ballot, the trial court “should issue an injunction precluding any votes for the measure from being counted,” as the state had already started printing ballots. The court issued a subsequent ruling on Sept. 16 vacating that statement and permitting the initiative’s supporters to make their arguments in the trial court that Arizona courts lack jurisdiction to remedy such a solution.

The following day, court-appointed Special Master and retired Arizona Superior Court Judge Christopher Skelly delivered his report to the Maricopa County Superior Court revealing Prop 140’s 38,000 pairs of duplicate signatures.

Despite these findings calling into question the measure’s eligibility to appear on the state’s November ballot, Maricopa Judge Frank Moskowitz ruled on Sept. 19 that votes cast for the measure would count. As summarized by AZ Free News, the judge “claimed that the confirmation of duplicated, invalid signatures was ‘moot’” because the state had already begun printing ballots for the election and that the courts lacked statutory authority to issue such an order.

“That is not a sufficient basis for this Court to grant such a remedy, especially given the injunction allowable under (the law), the statute upon which Plaintiffs initially brought this action, does not include enjoining the canvassing of votes,” Moskowitz wrote. “Perhaps the absence of such express authority in statute is because the Legislature never intended for initiative challenges to go past the ballot printing deadline.”

Plaintiffs appealed the decision, which was subsequently upheld by the Arizona Supreme Court on Friday. While the high court did not rationalize its ruling, Chief Justice Ann Scott Timmer noted in the order that “[a]n opinion explaining the Court’s reasons will follow in due course.”

In a statement responding to Friday’s decision, AZFEC President Scot Mussi said he was “disappointed” in the high court’s final ruling and argued that “the special interest groups attempting to hijack Arizona’s elections systems lacked the minimum number to qualify for the ballot to even be considered by voters in November.”

“The committee behind the measure was aware of the duplicates, yet they obstructed and delayed the review of the duplicate signatures for over a month,” Mussi said.

Other conservatives expressed concern about the precedent the Arizona Supreme Court may have created by allowing an initiative with a vast number of duplicate signatures to be considered by voters.

“What the AZ Supreme Court just affirmed is that as long as you can conceal your cheating long enough, you can fraud your way onto the ballot,” Strong Communities Foundation of Arizona Chair Merissa Hamilton wrote on X.

Speaking of the court’s decision, Jordan Kittleson, the policy director for the America First Policy Institute’s Center for Election Integrity, warned about the dangers associated with ranked-choice voting. In a statement to The Federalist, he said that RCV “throws one person, one vote, counted one time totally out the window.”

RCV “manufactures confusion with voters, sews chaos into the tabulation process, and disenfranchises voters at an alarming rate,” Kittleson said. “I’m confident that Arizonans will reject Prop 140 and vote ‘No’ on RCV.”

Shawn Fleetwood is a staff writer for The Federalist and a graduate of the University of Mary Washington. He previously served as a state content writer for Convention of States Action and his work has been featured in numerous outlets, including RealClearPolitics, RealClearHealth, and Conservative Review. Follow him on Twitter @ShawnFleetwood