< In Tuesday's 'primary,' Arizona's independent voters don't get much of a say

ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:

In Arizona, the electorate is divided into thirds, split roughly equally among Republicans, Democrats and independents. When Arizonans head to the polls tomorrow to cast their votes for presidential nominees, all those independent voters don't get much of a say. From member station KJZZ in Phoenix, Ben Giles reports.

BEN GILES, BYLINE: First of all, let's establish a few ground rules.

ERIC SPENCER: No. 1, we call it a preference election as opposed to a primary.

GILES: Eric Spencer served as Arizona's state elections director under a previous Republican administration.

SPENCER: For the PPE, or the presidential preference election, only registered party members are allowed to participate.

GILES: That makes the vote tomorrow unique. All other primaries in Arizona, like the one the state will hold on July 30, are open to independents - sort of.

ROY HERRERA: Arizona has what's called a semi-open primary.

GILES: As Democratic elections attorney Roy Herrera explains, registered Republicans can vote for Republicans and registered Democrats for Democrats. But if you're an independent trying to vote in a primary...

HERRERA: You have to select which party primary you want to participate in, either by requesting a ballot for that particular primary. Or when you go into vote, you have to pick whether you want to vote in the Republican or Democratic primary.

GILES: Arizona voters approved this system with a ballot measure in the late '90s, but they also left intact the state's presidential preference election, created a few years prior to that. Adrian Fontes has attempted to change that in 2019. Back then, he helped run elections in the state's largest county.

ADRIAN FONTES: It made sense to me at the time to make sure to include as many voters as possible in that presidential preference election contest.

GILES: The PPE may be a vote by and for political parties, but it's run by Arizona counties and paid for by all the state's taxpayers. But Democrats at a state committee meeting rejected the idea. When it comes to nominating a presidential candidate, many still feel it's a process best left to party members only. On this, Spencer, a Republican, and Herrera, a Democrat, can agree. And Spencer warned that if independents were involved...

SPENCER: It would radically alter the way presidential candidates campaign in Arizona. It would radically alter who received Arizona's votes and thus probably radically alter the course of the entire presidential election since Arizona's a swing state.

GILES: But to voters like Patricia Coughlin, that's exactly the point.

PATRICIA COUGHLIN: This is why we have these two extremes - because the extremes of those parties turn out during the primaries, and that's who goes on to the general.

GILES: Coughlin has been a registered independent for about a decade. This year she did something a little different. She reregistered as a Republican to cast a vote for Nikki Haley. After sending in her early ballot, she reregistered again as an independent.

COUGHLIN: I just feel that it is our duty to vote. We're lucky to be able to. And it was frustrating to me that I couldn't, you know, cast a ballot.

GILES: The temporary switch is completely legal, but it's not a step many Arizona voters take every four years. Four years from now, it might not be necessary. There's a ballot initiative gathering signatures that would require the Republican and Democratic parties to either pay for future PPEs or let independents participate. It's got Coughlin's support. Full disclosure - her husband's the political consultant running the ballot campaign. But she's also one of the roughly 1.4 million Arizona independents who stand to benefit.

COUGHLIN: And I think if more people voted in the primary, it would be better.

GILES: As for Fontes, now he's the secretary of state, so he won't take a position on a measure that could appear on Arizona ballots in November. But I asked him if his opinion has changed since he tried to convince Arizona Democrats to let in independents four years ago.

FONTES: Arizona's voters should be allowed to vote in every election.

GILES: Republicans, Democrats and, yes, independents. For NPR News, I'm Ben Giles in Phoenix.

(SOUNDBITE OF ADRIAN YOUNGE SONG, "LA BALLADE")

Copyright © 2024 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.