A judge ruled that a campaign seeking to end partisan primaries in Arizona gathered enough signatures to put its proposal on the ballot.
If approved by voters, Make Elections Fair’s ballot measure would create an open system allowing all registered voters to select the candidates of their choice in the primary, regardless of political affiliation.
The campaign gathered nearly 560,000 signatures to put the proposal on the ballot, well above the roughly 384,000 signatures required by state law. But opponents of the measure filed a lawsuit challenging the validity of hundreds of thousands of those signatures in an attempt to block it from reaching voters.
Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Frank Moskowitz rejected most of those challenges. In a judgment signed Thursday, he only invalidated 16,705 signatures, leaving the campaign with more than enough to qualify for the ballot.
Moskowitz’s ruling on those signatures comes a week after he rejected separate arguments claiming Make Elections Fair’s ballot question violated state constitutional restrictions limiting ballot measures to a single subject.
The Arizona Free Enterprise Club, which challenged the measure, appealed that ruling to the state Supreme Court.
“The committee looks forward to defending the trial court’s decision before the Arizona Supreme Court and is eager to focus our efforts on Prop. 140’s passage in November,” Sarah Smallhouse, Make Elections Fair chairman, said in a statement.
Make Elections Fair won another legal victory this month when another judge found language approved by lawmakers to describe the proposal in informational pamphlets mislead voters about how it would affect future election.
