How you gonna keep 'em down on the ENTIRE ballot?

[dobleremolque]

August 3, 2024 is the target date by which Arizona’s Secretary of State hopes to certify three citizen initiatives for the ballot and give each a ballot proposition number. The initiatives are: the Abortion Access Act Amendment which amends the State Constitution to establish a fundamental right to abortion; the Eliminate Partisan Primaries Amendment which amends the State Constitution to replace partisan primary elections with open primaries; and the Minimum Wage Increase Initiative which places a statute on the books to increase the Arizona minimum wage to $18/hour.

If the three citizen initiatives survive signature validation and some anticipated legal skirmishes over descriptive wording on the ballot, they will appear alongside 11 legislative referrals. Six of those are constitutional amendments and five would become state statutes if passed. The last time there were 14 propositions on the ballot was 2002. It’ll be the second longest ballot in Arizona history.

Arizona’s 2024 general election ballot is going to be a long document, perhaps even two pages. It will take voters more time than usual to complete, provided they vote each item. The concern is will voters vote each item? Will they complete the entire ballot?

The phenomenon is well known in elections circles and is called “ballot roll-off” or “ballot fatigue.” Voters mark the high profile names, then skip the down-ballot.

The ballot document in Arizona is divided into 3 major sections: first, the candidates for elective office; second, district judges and state Supreme Court justices up for retention; and finally, ballot propositions.

The Abortion Access Act amendment to the state constitution is supposed to be one of the primary issues driving voters to the polls in 2024. But if it doesn’t show up until the final section of the ballot document, how will ballot roll-off affect it?

A 10-state study (Arizona was one of them) of 2022 ballot roll-off patterns indicated that Democratic down-ballot candidates are hurt by ballot roll-off 83% of the time. Republicans log just 13% in that study.

The effect cited in the study is on down-ballot candidates, but roll-off surely will have some impact on the down-ballot propositions. GOTV is wonderful and necessary. How do we combine it with a strategy to thwart the effect of ballot roll-off on an amendment that most Democrats want to see enshrined in the Arizona Constitution?

[Qutzupalotl]

1. Sample ballots

and mailers making their choices easier.

Trusted groups often mail voter guides. Sounds like AZ could use a few.

[dobleremolque]

2. Oh there are guides, and

the GOTV postcards that I'm sending now remind newly registered Democrats and NPPs (No Party Preference) that they can vote by mail. "Comfort of your own home..." and all that might encourage people to take the time to vote the entire ballot.

I'm trying to figure out what I can write, short and sweet, as a personal post-script on each card to get folks to the proposition, once it is assigned a proposition number by the Sec. of State. Like "Yes on Prop. xxx!"