Improving Arizona's Election System

I believe that the lack of quality candidates running for certain AZ statewide public offices is due to the low compensation. For several elections in a row now, voters have denied an increase in legislator pay from $24,000 to $36,000. For the amount of time & effort they are expected to put into the job, $24,000 is a joke. I know some highly qualified people interested in serving our state but they can’t afford to live on those kinds of wages and therefore don't run.

Clean Elections waas a great step in the right direction for Arizona. I believe that this will be part of a national solution one day to clean up federal elections as well. I think it's easily demonized because the campaigns are publicly funded. What people should realize is that they pay for this one way or another. In privately-funded elections, there are entities who are essentially buying representation. And since representation is finite, that takes away from the average voter.

I believe the other large part in order to clean up elections is to have run-off voting. The spoiler votes are something this can solve. I think it would be extraordinary progress if Arizona were to adapt Instant Run-off Voting (IRV). But I think it would have to be an initiative like Clean Elections was, because this is likely something that the Dems or Reps would not support since it would allow 3rd parties to be treated as equals.

Why does it really matter that we increase voter turnout?. It seams to me that to much time and money are being spent on getting people to vote. I understand that voting is a priviledge, but the people that actually want to vote do it by one of the many available options, and the people that dont want to vote dont. Why is it such a big deal?

As a recent Independent candidate for the Dist 1 House of Representatives seat, I believe that I have a unique insight into some of the problems with the "Clean" Elections system. To begin with it should be noted that the intiative's intent was to level the playing field in statewide electoral politics, and to increase the public's confidence in the electoral process itself. When I decided to run for the State House of Reps as an Independent, I believed that the clean elections system was there to help me and to create a campaign that would allow the voters to choose fairly between the available candidates. To put it mildly I do not believe this is what happened in this campaign.

The bottom line numbers are that the two winning candidates (republicans) from district 1 each received about $40,000 from the clean elections commision and I received about $21,000. The initial difference is that non primary candidates are allocated 70% of the base monies that primary candidates receive. The remaining balance has to do with "matching funds" for monies spent in support of the republican candidates in the primaries, and because independent candidates are prohibited from receiving matching funds during the primary cycle this coincidently reduced the percentage that my campaign was able to receive.

This flaw in the Clean Elections Initiative which inadvertently biases the outcomes of an election to favor the established party of a region is problematic and should be rectified. The problem is that the legislators that have the power to fix this system have no motivation to do so, if it continues in its present form they all benefit at the taxpayers expense and if the citizens become too frustrated over the flaws and reject the concept all together then they win again! The idea that the Clean elections system would help defray the imbalance in the electoral process has proven to be a fantasy.

Now for the coup de gras, in addtion to the added funding from the state for established party candidates, the state also has a law allowing the three established parties to have voter registration lists free of charge while the county recorders are required to charge all other candidates ten cents a name for the lists. This would have cost my campaign about $11,000, and when I requested "Matching funds" for this obvious financial disadvantage, I was told by the commission that if I wanted the list I would have to buy it from the counties from the $21,000 clean elections money that I had already received. When this "in kind" contribution by the political parties is factored into the campaign, the Republican candidates received about $50,000 to my $21,000. Somehow I do not believe this is what the people had in mind when they established this system?