As a fourth-generation Arizonan, I tend to get a little salty when folks talk about Arizona's so-called "lack of culture." I often think it's because these days most people who live in Arizona weren't born here. But for those of us who know better, we know that part of our core as Arizonans is our famous independence. The word we like to use around here is "maverick."
From our state's infancy, mavericks have flocked from all over the country to escape and start anew. Those who came contributed to that spirit, not detracted from it. It's why they came in the first place. We are, and have always been, a state and a people that prides itself on charting our own course. We take pride in bucking national trends in favor of our own unique brand of frontier, wild-west pragmatism. Lately, however, that pragmatism has been tested by a growing exhaustion with our political climate and it seems some people think there's an easy road out. Spoiler alert: there's not.
The vitriol is loud, the polarization is stark, and many Arizonans feel alienated by a system that seems entirely disconnected from their everyday lives.
Enter the proposed "solution" currently making the rounds in both Arizonan and national political circles: Ranked Choice Voting (RCV) and the implementation of "jungle" or top-two open primaries. Proponents of this so-called solution promise that by eliminating traditional party primaries and allowing voters to rank their choices it will magically drain the toxicity from our elections, sideline the extremes, and usher in a new era of moderation and consensus. It's a very seductive promise but it's also completely misleading and one that I encourage Arizonan mavericks to buck at all costs.
Before Arizona takes a sledgehammer to its electoral foundations, I think we need to untangle exactly what is being proposed. Reformers often intentionally blur the lines between two distinct, flawed concepts: Jungle Primaries and RCV. A jungle primary changes who gets on the ballot by forcing everyone into a single race where only the top few advance. RCV changes how we count, forcing voters to rank multiple candidates in a complicated, multi-round tabulation process.
We do not need to rely on hypotheticals to see how these systems fail; we only need to look at the chaos they leave in their wake.
In 2022, Alaska implemented an open primary alongside ranked choice voting for its general elections. The results were immediate, confusing, and profoundly undemocratic. In the special election for Alaska's lone U.S. House seat, nearly 60 percent of voters cast their first-choice ballot for a Republican candidate. By any traditional metric of democratic representation, a Republican should have been sent to Washington to represent that conservative state.
Instead, a Democrat won.
Rudy, how does a party win an election when 60 percent of the electorate fundamentally disagrees with their platform, you ask? Bear with me for a second, but the answer lies in the convoluted mechanics of RCV.
Because the Republican vote was split between two prominent candidates, the race went to multiple rounds of tabulation. During this process, a phenomenon known as "ballot exhaustion" occurred. A total of 11,243 Alaskans simply voted for their preferred candidate and chose not to rank a second or third option. When their first choice was eliminated, their ballots were virtually discarded. They had no voice in the final outcome. The winner did not achieve a true majority of the electorate; they achieved a majority only after the system artificially erased thousands of dissenting votes. This is not the voice of the people; it's a majority illusion engineered by an opaque algorithm.
It seems to me that "blowing up" the primary model in favor of a jungle primary system will likely lead to a less representative government and the artificial creation of extreme supermajorities. So if RCV breaks the general election, the threat of the jungle primary breaks the foundation of representation.
For us Arizonans, imagine an Arizona legislative district that leans 55 percent Democrat and 45 percent Republican. If the Democrats field five eager candidates and the Republicans field only two, the Democratic majority will fracture its own base. The two Republicans, consolidating their minority support, could easily sweep the top two spots.
When November arrives, voters in a Democrat-leaning district would be forced to choose between two Republicans. The majority of the electorate is effectively silenced before the general election even begins. That would only further work to suppress voter turnout, breed more voter apathy, and mathematically guarantee less representative outcomes. Over time, this dynamic cannot create the moderate, balanced legislature that advocates promise. Instead, it will box out diverse and minority voices, artificially engineer legislative supermajorities, and ensure that large swaths of the state will be governed by politicians whose constituents fundamentally oppose them.
I understand why people are frustrated with our current political dynamics. When you look at the gridlock and the grandstanding, it's easy to believe that the political parties are no longer working for the people. I think many of the folks who want jungle primaries are, in reality, lashing out against a party system they feel has abandoned them. They're searching for a silver bullet or a quick reset that promises to fix everything without requiring them to engage with the messy reality of the current political landscape.
But the answer to our political malaise isn't to try and change the system writ large. We cannot legislate away human disagreement by changing the rules of the game just because we don't like the current players. The answer is to work within the devised process to make it better. We must use the system for what it's meant to be used for: a battleground of ideas where ideological coalitions choose their standard-bearers and make their case to the public.
Let's be honest with ourselves: politics isn't easy. But it was never meant to be a spectator sport either. It's incredibly hard work. And reclaiming our political parties, demanding better from our representatives, and building consensus takes immense courage, unwavering commitment, and a stubborn persistence. It requires showing up to local committee meetings, knocking on doors, and engaging in difficult conversations with our neighbors. It's tedious, often unglamorous work.
Blowing up the primary system is the lazy way out. It's an attempt to bypass the hard work of persuasion by altering the mathematics of the ballot box. Arizona mavericks are too astute to be sold snake oil. We should reject the convoluted, disenfranchising experiment of ranked choice voting and jungle primaries. Instead of breaking the system, roll up your sleeves, get in the arena, and do the hard work required to fix it. Get involved in the political parties and change them from within.
Anyone that thinks it's not possible clearly doesn't remember 2016.
