​Damaging Initiative Removed from November Ballot

On Friday afternoon, after a protracted court battle, the Arizona Supreme Court affirmed an amended ruling by the Maricopa County Superior Court that the misleadingly named "Arizonans for Free & Fair Elections" ballot initiative fell 1,500 signature short of the required amount and would, thereby, be removed from the November ballot. 
 
This is excellent news for NAIOP member companies and business more broadly.
 
This lengthy, convoluted initiative funded by out-of-state tech industry billionaires, would have opened up Arizona’s election process to potential manipulation. Of particular concern, is that this Act would have limited legal reviews of initiative petitions, making it more likely that fraudulent or misleading measures could make it onto the ballot. It would have made it easier for paid petition circulators to avoid complying with the law on how, where, and when signatures must be collected, increasing the risk that petitions with forged signatures, multiple signatures from the same person, or other problems would be accepted.

To make matters worse, this initiative would have taken away rights from individuals, burdened taxpayers, and provided government funding to candidates who don’t have enough support to raise their own campaign funds. As the cost of financing a campaign goes up, donation limits on individual donors would have been lowered, pushing more candidates into a government financed election scheme. Under this system, all candidates for a given office would receive the same amount of taxpayer funds, making it harder for someone who does not already have name recognition to get their message across to the voters.​

As the courts determined, even the signature collection process for "Arizonans for Free & Fair Elections" had serious flaws. Not having this measure on the 2022 ballot will help protect business from future ballot initiatives that contain harmful new taxes and regulations. ​