Local opinion: The rights of independent voters and low voter turnout

With the July 21 primary election behind us, there has been a lot of talk in the community about low voter turnout for that election. Just under 29% of the eligible voters turned out. However, for more than a third of us, the turnout number was even lower, most likely because Arizona law requires them to take an extra step in order to participate in primary elections.

If you register as a Party Not Designated (or independent) voter, you are part of the fastest growing segment of the electorate. In 2020, there were just under 170,000 independent voters in Pima County. That number has grown to slightly under 220,000 voters in the last six years. There are almost 647,000 total registered voters countywide. Independents outnumber Republicans and are not far behind the Democrats. Statewide, independents now outnumber Democrats and are second to Republicans.

Independents in Arizona are eligible to vote in primary elections, although they are barred from participating in the presidential preference elections each party conducts every four years. To take part in a primary election, independent voters in our state must notify their county recorder’s office that they want a ballot for one of the parties mailed to them if they vote by mail. They can also go to a polling place on Election Day and request a party primary ballot be issued to them. The data shows that these legally required extra steps deter independent voters from participating in primary elections.

This year, only 6.5% of the independent voters in Pima County requested a party primary ballot. Two years ago, 6.6% of them did so. The high water mark in the last three election cycles occurred in 2022, when 9.9% of independents opted to participate in that year’s primaries. Although I have not looked at statewide data, or the results from the other 14 counties, I am confident we would find similar numbers.

Why should these statistics be of concern when independents can join the rest of us to cast ballots in November general elections? The reason is that many decisions about who will represent us in office will have already been made in the primaries. For a variety of reasons, only five or six of the 30 Arizona legislative districts have competitive general elections. Two of the nine US House districts in our state are considered to be competitive in the general election. The same is true for two of our five county supervisor districts and all of the elected offices within the City of Tucson.

The Democratic and Republican parties are perfectly content with the current laws that make it harder for independents to vote in primaries and that bar them from voting in presidential preference elections. Two years ago, a group of concerned citizens brought forth Proposition 140, which would have made it easier for independents to participate in primaries. Both of the two major political parties opposed the measure. In fact, I was the only elected official in Arizona also on the ballot in 2024 who publicly supported Proposition 140.

Open primaries, where all candidates who want to move forward to the general election for any office compete, are the only way to ensure that all voters have an equal say in who represents them. The two parties should welcome this necessary reform. A party grows and thrives when it is more inclusive and when its candidates earn broad appeal. Our current structures guarantee that party activists, who are often less representative of the electorate as a whole, are the ones selecting most of our elected officials. The inevitable results can be seen in our increasingly polarized and dysfunctional US Congress and Arizona State Legislature. In most congressional and legislative districts in Arizona, their representatives are picked by a minority of their voters.

Proposition 140 may not have been the ideal solution, but it would have resulted in more open and representative elections. I call on both the Democratic and Republican parties, as well as my fellow elected officials to stand up for opening up our primary processes and the rights of independent voters. An embrace of the status quo can no longer be defended.