Ari­zona group wants to give the pow­er to inde­pen­dents with open pri­maries

This Novem­ber, Ari­zona vot­ers will be giv­en the chance to move their state away from semi-closed pri­maries and open them to all reg­is­tered vot­ers.
A ref­er­en­dum on the bal­lot from Make Elec­tions Fair Ari­zona asks whether the cur­rent sys­tem, in which inde­pen­dents are forced to pick up either a Repub­li­can or Demo­c­ra­t­ic bal­lot on pri­ma­ry day, is unjust. If approved, the ref­er­en­dum would reform the Ari­zona Con­sti­tu­tion to do away with the cur­rent pri­ma­ry sys­tem and replace it with a sin­gle, open pri­ma­ry.
Chuck Cough­lin, a long­time polit­i­cal con­sul­tant in the state who is run­ning the cam­paign for Make Elec­tions Fair Ari­zona, told the Wash­ing­ton Exam­in­er the mea­sure “per­mits every vot­er in every can­di­date to be treat­ed iden­ti­cal …