By Howard Fischer
Mail | X: @azcapmedia

PHOENIX — Arizonans are entitled to decide whether to scrap the current system of partisan primaries, a trial judge ruled this Thursday morning.

Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Frank Moskowitz acknowledged there was evidence that challengers proved that 37,657 signatures on petitions to put Proposition 140 on the ballot were duplicate. That, by itself, should have left the initiative without sufficient signatures.

The judge pointed out, however, the ballots went to the printer at the end of August, with the language of the ballot measure included. And Moskowitz said the failure of challenges to have proven their claim of duplicate signatures by that date ended the matter.

That decision is virtually certain to be appealed by challengers to the Arizona Supreme Court.

But Moskowitz is prepared for that.

If the justices don't accept his conclusion that the ballot printing deadline made the whole case moot, he has two other reasons the case should be thrown out.

One relates to how the calculations were made to bring the number of valid signatures below the 383,923 needed to qualify for the ballot.

The judge said it illegally "double counted" some invalid signatures.

And if the justices don't buy either of those arguments, Moskowitz has an ultimate fallback.

He said the challengers, recognizing the ballots already have been printed, asked him to order state and county election officials to simply not count the votes for or against the measure. Only thing is, Moskowitz said, nothing in state law allows him to issue such an order.

"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,'' he wrote.

There was no immediate response from the challengers. But Chuck Coughlin, political consultant for the Make Elections Fair committee that is behind Proposition 140, called it a "complete and total walk-off home run.''

The measure, if approved, would eliminate the current system where the state runs separate primary elections for each political party.

It would be replaced by a single primary — sometimes called a "jungle primary'' — where all candidates from all parties and those with no affiliation run against each other. And all registered voters could participate.

Then the top two vote-getters would advance to the general election, regardless of party. But it also permits the Legislature to allow up to the top five candidates to go on to what would be the runoff, though opting for such a system would require the use of ranked-choice voting.