PHOENIX – Today the Chairman of the Arizona Republican Party, Robert Graham, criticized Arizona Democrats who implemented an election strategy that avoids involving voters in the selection of the Democrats' nominees for governor, secretary of state, and attorney general.
“We’ve known for some time that elites within the Democratic Party gamed the system to ensure only one of their candidates was on the primary ballot,” said Robert Graham, Chairman of the Arizona Republican Party. “Every voter receiving a Democrat Party ballot in this election is being reminded that their right to choose their candidate is being denied by the Democrats."
According to the most recent published voter registration figures from the Arizona Secretary of State, there are more than 960,000 registered Democrats and more than 1,130,000 other voters who are eligible to vote in the Democrat primary. That means two-thirds of the more than 3.2 million voters in Arizona who are eligible to vote in Democrat primary are being refused the right to play a role in selecting the Democrat nominee for the state’s top offices.
The latest figures available from Maricopa County, which holds nearly 60% of Arizona’s registered voters, show that independents voting early greatly favor voting a Republican primary ballot compared to voting the ballot of the Democrats. As of today 42,310 independents have requested a Republican primary ballot compared to only 18,547 who have requested the Democrat ballot.
“Republicans in Arizona are engaged in a vigorous set of campaigns for nomination of multiple offices -- a competitive process for choosing the nominee that best represents the people of our party, while the Democrats chose instead to have a Soviet-style election,” Graham added.
