Bad signatures plague Top 2 initiative; supporters promise lawsuit

After spending almost $1 million and successfully fighting a court challenge, the citizens’ initiative that seeks to put in a “top-two” primary election system in Arizona appears to lack the signatures needed to qualify for the November ballot.

Even before the statewide signature verification has been fully completed, the organizers behind the Open Elections/Open Government ballot initiative concede that too many invalid signatures have been tallied by the Maricopa, Pima, Apache and Graham County recorders’ offices.

The Secretary of State determined that 17,932 signatures – or 5 percent of the 358,629 signatures that were eligible for verification – needed to be checked by county elections officials.

In order to qualify for the ballot, no more than 4,970 of those signatures could be deemed invalid. But the total number of invalid signatures for only Maricopa, Pima, Graham and Apache counties has already reached 5,001.

The remaining counties are still validating signatures and have until Aug. 27 to submit their findings to the Secretary of State. Their findings can only add to the number of signatures already deemed invalid.

Joe Yuhas, a political consultant working on behalf of the initiative, said he and the measure’s supporters will begin working on legal action to challenge what is expected to be a rejection from the November ballot.

Yuhas pointed out that there is significant disparity between the portion of signatures Maricopa County deemed invalid compared to other counties, and that a challenge to its validation process could lead to re-validating some of what they determined were bad signatures.

The Maricopa County Recorder’s office counted 4,314, or 33 percent of its 13,076 sample signatures, as invalid. The Pima County Recorder’s office reported that 682, or 22 percent of its sample, were invalid.

“We don’t know why that is,” Yuhas said of Maricopa County’s higher figure. “We do know that the numbers aren’t consistent with other counties, as well as our own internal validation process.”

After each county has reported to the Secretary of State, a challenge to the sample validation is required within five days.

A spokesman for the Secretary of State said the office will not make any official decision or announcement about the number of valid or invalid signatures until all 15 counties have reported their findings.

The top-two initiative seeks to create a primary system in which the two candidates for any given seat with the most votes advance to the general election. Currently, the top vote-getter from each party advances to the general.

Just last week, the Arizona Supreme Court overturned a lower court’s decision that the initiative violated the “single-subject rule” in the state Constitution, clearing the way for the initiative to appear on the ballot.