Arizona voters approve Republican measures to restrict ballot initiatives – By Rachel Leingang (The Guardian) / Nov 21, 2022
Two measures get go-ahead from voters but bid to institute stricter voter ID requirements fails
Two Republican ballot measures that will restrict how citizens can get their own priorities on the ballot in the future were approved by voters in Arizona, while one measure to institute stricter voter ID requirements failed.
The mixed messages sent by voters on these measures aligned with the state’s increasingly purple, swing-state style, where candidates and proposals that win come from both sides of the aisle.
Groups planning to run initiatives will now need those measures to focus on a single subject. For measures that seek to increase taxes, they will now need to get a 60% supermajority of votes for approval. The tax increase measure passed narrowly, with 50.7% in favor, while the single subject question received 55% of the vote.
“The irony is that, with such a slim majority, just over 30,000 votes, voters gave away their authority to have a simple majority make decisions,” said Stacy Pearson, a spokesperson for Will of the People Arizona, the campaign against the three initiative-related measures.
