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Opinion: It's time to change Arizona elections for good

8 15
11.10.2024

In today’s politics, those with the most extreme views are winning office, powered by partisan primaries and the small percentage of fervent party members who vote in them.

Look what has happened in Arizona, where moderates and non-MAGA conservatives have been censored, harassed, threatened with violence and replaced by fringe candidates.

House Speaker Rusty Bowers is gone because he refused Trump’s repeated asks to help decertify Arizona’s 2020 election results.

Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer lost this year’s primary because he debunked unfounded theories about illegal ballots being cast or vote manipulation that cost Trump and other MAGA candidates.

Other democracy defenders also are gone. Maricopa County Supervisors Clint Hickman and Bill Gates called it quits, and Supervisor Jack Sellers got bounced in the primary after backlash from the party and threats against him.

Even before the emergence of election deniers, those who bucked the party got punished. That’s why U.S. Sen. Jeff Flake is gone and why the late U.S. Sen. John McCain went through hell to get past his last Republican primary.

Moderates such as state lawmakers Heather Carter and Paul Boyer, who worked with and at times voted alongside Democrats, got “primaried out” or saw no path to party nomination.

This has gone too far.

Any hesitation we may have had in the past about reforming partisan primaries is gone, too.

It’s time to restore some sanity in our politics, and to do so we must begin by changing a primary system that has encouraged — and favored — the most extreme candidates.

We can do that by passing Proposition........

© Arizona Republic


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