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Arizona State Sen. Kevin Payne has a very bad idea. Earlier this month, Payne introduced a proposal in the Arizona Senate to ask voters to amend the state constitution in order to allow the use of the firing squad as a method of execution.

Payne, an ardent death penalty supporter, has been frustrated by Arizona’s inability to pick up the pace of executions. The state resumed executing people in 2022 after an eight-year pause caused by difficulties in obtaining drugs needed for lethal injection.

Between then and now, it has put five people to death. It has only one execution on the docket for 2026.

There are 109 people on Arizona’s death row. Payne thinks that asking the voters to add the firing squad to the state’s execution menu will allow the state to turn more of its death sentences into executions.

But there are certain questions that even in a democracy should not be decided by majority rule. Democracy demands allegiance to ideals of human dignity and political equality, the protection of which is its animating purpose. A democratic state must never treat any citizen as entirely worthless.

Any decision that violates those principles is incompatible with democracy. That is why Arizona, and every other death penalty state, should never ask voters to decide what method it can use to take someone’s life.

Before discussing the Payne proposal further, let me describe Arizona’s long and unique history of putting methods of execution to a popular vote.

Adding the firing squad in Arizona requires a constitutional amendment because the state’s constitution explicitly describes the sole methods of execution allowable for the state. It currently states: “The judgment........

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