If you already turned in your ballot, I hope you completed it, front and back. If you’re headed to the polls, I’d urge you to take the time to consider every spot on the ballot. Don’t skip the judges.

I understand you probably have never heard of most of them. We rarely hear about Superior Court judges, for example. And your experience inside a courtroom might be limited to (hopefully) just jury duty. On the question of whether to retain a judge, most of us are what pollsters might refer to as “low information” voters.

This isn’t necessarily a bad thing. As Chief Justice John Roberts said at his confirmation hearing, “Nobody ever went to a ball game to see the umpire.” Just like referees and umpires applying the rules, we want judges applying the law fairly and consistently.

���������DzԲ�’s&�Բ�����; for determining who serves on the bench is a smart one, and it’s one that you won’t find in every state. Under our retention and merit selection system, the governor makes judicial appointments to appeals courts and to trial courts in Maricopa, Pima, Coconino, and Pinal counties after considering recommendations from a judicial nominating commission. Once appointed, however, judges do not serve lifetime terms like they would at the federal level. Here they must occasionally stand for retention.

It’s a wise system. It combines public accountability without high-pitched partisan politics and things like party primaries or nonstop campaign fundraising. You haven’t gotten any junk mail from the three state Supreme Court justices up for retention saying ridiculous things about their opponents. Our system avoids turning judges into what former Supreme Court Justice and Arizona icon Sandra Day O’Connor  “politicians in robes.”

That’s another reason why I urge everyone to finish their ballot: it’s a small but important gesture to strengthen the faith and credibility of the judicial system. Justice O’Connor’s worry that judges would be perceived as just another category of cynical politicians is a legitimate one; it erodes Americans’ belief that they can get a fair shake under the law.

But there’s an activist class that wants to undermine Americans’ faith in the judiciary. We see it whenever a court issues a ruling some special interest group might disagree with. Instead of arguing their position on the merits or vowing to try again to change law or working to elect new members of the legislative branch, they throw into question judges’ motivations or ethics, tossing around words like  or .

Much like irresponsibly denying the outcome of an election without evidence, attacks against the judicial system have a corrosive effect, turning the noble pursuit of equal justice under law into a cynical game for insiders, political activists, and internet trolls.

It’s rare that an Arizona judge isn’t retained. That’s how it should be. We don’t want judges to become known for an approach that falls far outside the mainstream or for questionable conduct, after all. But the decision is ultimately up to us. We vote for the governor who makes the appointments, and we vote whether to retain judges in their current positions.

So, don’t skip the judges. Your vote to retain our judges is a vote to preserve a trusted, impartial, and fair judicial branch.

Danny Seiden is president and CEO of the Arizona �鶹��ýӳ�� of Commerce & Industry.

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In a at Arizona State University Tuesday night, election policy experts examined the topic of ballot accessibility and accuracy in Arizona elections, as well as the lessons to be learned from the 2020 general election in a political environment where some Americans are expressing doubt about the administration of elections and the trustworthiness of their results.

Moderated by former state treasurer and Arizona Board of Regents President Emerita Eileen Klein, the panel featured John C. Fortier, an elections policy specialist and senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, former speaker of the Arizona House Kirk Adams, and Lisa Marra, director of elections for Cochise County and the president of the Election Officials Association of Arizona.

Commenting on the various systems that oversee the administration of elections across the country, Fortier said that the American election system, relative to other nations, is very decentralized in its structure, giving discretionary powers of design to each state. 

“This means we have differences in not just rules about voting, but in the size of the jurisdictions,” Fortier said. “We have Los Angeles County with 10 million people and a small town in Maine where 50 people are being asked to administer the same elections.”  

Fortier said that the American voting experience is far more exhaustive than the other systems around the world. 

“We vote a lot, and what I mean by that is our ballots are long and complicated and we vote on presidents, Congress, governor, secretary of state, and state legislators,” he said. “We even vote on judges. That presents challenges for how to vote, for counting the ballot, for voter attention.”

Our federal system, consisting of 50 individual state election systems, and our wide-ranging ballots, are both a privilege and a big responsibility. And in the midst of a pandemic, Fortier said, emergency election system alterations had to be made. 

Fortier and co-author Charles Stewart III assessed the lessons learned from the 2020 election and the adjustments made to the voting process in a released in September in conjunction with the MIT Election Science & Data Lab.

Marra provided her perspective as an Arizona elections official, saying that “other states wish they were Arizona. We do things very well.” 

Marra discussed Arizona’s separation of powers in its election system, whereby the county recorder who oversees the voter registration list is elected, but a county elections director, who manages candidate filings, recalls, initiatives, establishes voting sites and more, is an appointed position. 

Marra argued that the Arizona system places pressure on appointed elections officials to perform their jobs well. Poor performance could lead to their firing, which differs from elected county recorders, who typically face voters every four years.

Marra compared the recent controversy surrounding mail-in ballots in other states to Arizona’s experience, which she says has been using mail-in ballots successfully for decades. 

“Other states that didn’t have that in place and tried to change quickly, they ran into problems. We have very good systems here,” Marra said. “We have a lot of choices for voters in Arizona and voters like that. You can vote early, on Election Day, you can get your ballot by mail.” 

Adams, who was speaker of the Arizona House of Representatives from 2009 to 2011, said social media sources have contributed to Americans’ perception of the trustworthiness of the American electoral system.

“Social media algorithms create echo chambers,” he said. When everyone believes that the sentiments of those around them represent the consensus of the rest of the country or the whole state of Arizona, they are surprised on Election Day when the results do not align with their expectations. 

“I think that what our leaders tell us about the results of an election is incredibly influential to how we think about that election, and when we have mixed messages, it can sometimes confuse in voters’ minds what really happened,” he said. 

Adams recalled a televised Oval Office meeting between President Donald Trump and Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey before the 2020 election where the president made a negative comment about mail-in ballots that was refuted by Ducey, who defended the Arizona system as one that makes it easy to vote and hard to cheat, a response that Adams applauded.

Fortier cautioned that measuring voters’ confidence in the election system through opinion polls can be misleading.

“Measuring of voter confidence by polling is very problematic,” he said. “One of the reasons is we know this long history that shows the party who wins feels much more confident that the election has gone the right way, and the party who loses feels that it has gone the opposite way.” 

In attendance at the event were state business leaders, ASU faculty, Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer, and former secretary of state and state Senate president Ken Bennett. 

The discussion was the result of a partnership between the Arizona �鶹��ýӳ�� Foundation’s Arizona Junior Fellows program and the School of Civic and Economic Thought and Leadership at Arizona State University. The event was the second in The Future of Arizona Democracy series. The , “Is Arizona’s Initiative Process Ripe for Reform?” was held last spring. 

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On Monday, following Arizona’s certification of the November 3rd election results, Gov. Doug Ducey took to Twitter to defend the state’s electoral process and voting system.

Ducey has repeatedly defended Arizona’s long-standing mail-in voting system. At the Oval Office with President Donald Trump in August of this year, he that “we’ve established a system that works and can be trusted.”

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Voters across the country served up a mixed bag of results on fiscal policy issues in early election results.  

In Arizona, Proposition 208, which nearly doubles the state income tax rate, held a slight edge on Wednesday.  

Proponents of the tax increase, which was endorsed by Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vermont, led opponents by more than 135,000 votes.  

In Colorado, voters there adopted Proposition 116, which reduces the state income tax rate from 4.63 percent to 4.55.  

If the results hold, Arizona will have the highest income tax rate in the four-corner region at 8% and Colorado will have the most competitive rate. Arizona’s income tax rate will also be among the highest nationally.  

“There are hundreds of thousands of ballots left to be counted, so it’s premature to make any definitive declarations about the results,” Arizona �鶹��ýӳ�� of Commerce & Industry President and CEO Glenn Hamer said. “If the result holds, however, Arizona will have some of the highest income tax rates in the country, and states with high income tax rates typically struggle economically, so attracting jobs here will become more difficult. Regardless of what happens, we’ll continue to work to support policies that keep the economy healthy so teachers can be paid fairly and so we can attract more Arizonans to the teaching field.”  

Illinois voters rejected a tax increase that would have replaced the state’s flat income tax rate with a progressive tax system. Had the measure passed, a new tax bracket of 7.85% would apply to single-filer income above $350,000 and below $750,000, and couples’ income above $500,000 to $1 million annually.  

The Illinois amendment would also institute a new 7.99% rate that would apply to all taxable income for single filers who earn more than $750,000 and joint filers who earn more than $1 million annually.  

Voters in California, a high-tax state with a top income tax rate of more than 13%, the nation’s highest, appear to have rejected Proposition 15, albeit narrowly based on early returns.  

The measure would have established a so-called “split-roll” property tax system that would have made it easier to raise property taxes on business property.  

In Florida, a state won by President Donald Trump, voters elected to phase-in a minimum wage increase. The mandated hourly wage will increase annually beginning next year until it reaches $15 per hour in 2026.  

Florida voters also rejected a measure that would have required constitutional amendments to be approved by voters in two consecutive general elections.  

Florida already requires ballot measures to reach a 60% vote threshold in order to pass.

On the issue of worker mobility, California voters elected to overturn a law that made it more difficult for workers to become independent contractors for technology platforms like Uber and Lyft.

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Following an unprecedented primary election waged in the midst of an economic recession and global pandemic, Arizona voters on Tuesday cast their ballots in primary battles across the state. 

With many races still too close to call, voters now turn their attention to the November general election.

You can find results from yesterday’s state legislative races at the Arizona Secretary of State’s Office .

Shifting ground

The November election will determine control of the state Legislature, where Republicans hold a 31-29 advantage in the state House, and 17-13 advantage in the state Senate. 

Political observers expect Legislative District 6, which encompasses large swaths of northern and eastern Arizona, to be a major battleground in a Senate race pitting Republican Wendy Rogers against Democrat Felecia French. Rogers defeated incumbent senator Sylvia Allen in the GOP primary.

Legislative District 17 in Chandler and Gilbert, and the West Valley’s Legislative District 20, which were once reliably Republican, are also expected to feature hotly contested Senate races.

Legislative District 28, which includes north central Phoenix, will once again match Republican incumbent Sen. Kate Brophy McGee against Democratic challenger Christine Marsh. This is Marsh’s second attempt at the Senate seat, losing in 2018 by fewer than 300 votes.

Business Ballot

As the state shifts its attention to the general election, the Arizona �鶹��ýӳ�� Foundation is launching a new project that will inform job creators and workers on election information and candidates’ records on business. also will provide detailed analyses of ballot initiatives that will come before voters in November.

Currently a subpage of the �鶹��ýӳ�� Foundation’s website, Business Ballot will soon transition to a website of its own. 

On its website, Business Ballot will feature the following:

• Analyses of each ballot initiative
• Analyses of key legislative, statewide, and local races
• Detailed articles on certain issues
• Perspectives on issues from leaders in industry and public policy
• Post-primary update + future developments

�鶹��ýӳ�� Endorsements

The Arizona �鶹��ýӳ�� of Commerce’s slate of stood up well last night. Many pro-business and pro-economic-growth candidates in both parties won their primaries.

Speaking on the endorsements in June, Glenn Hamer, �鶹��ýӳ�� president and CEO, said, “Arizona is counting on their leadership to develop the policies necessary to emerge from the pandemic just as we entered it—with one of the nation’s strongest economies.”

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Next up on “Request To Speak,” host Garrick Taylor asks his guests about their predictions for 2020, including the presidential election, a U.S. Senate race and the Arizona Cardinals. Featuring guest panelists: Bob Charles, director of First Strategic; Jessie Armendt, senior associate at Compass Strategies; and Lorna Romero, owner and founder of Elevate Strategies. Join us again tomorrow!

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Host Garrick Taylor sat down with Roy Herrera and Courtney Shadegg on the latest episode of Request to Speak to discuss why we see politicians change their minds on different issues, the relevancy of ideological identifiers and their book recommendations.

Read/Watch/Listen:

• Roy Herrera recommends a book: “Charged: The New Movement to Transform American Prosecution and End Mass Incarceration” .
• Courtney Shadegg recommends a book: “Ship of Fools: How a Selfish Ruling Class is Bringing America to the Brink of Revolution” .
• Garrick Taylor recommends a graphic novel: “A Fire Story” .

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The long awaited 2018 midterm elections are here, and candidates are using every minute to reach out to voters as they approach the end of the campaign trail.

Arizonan Republicans last night gathered on the steps the historic Yavapai County Courthouse to rally Republican voters and boost voter turnout.

The rally was attended by almost all the Republicans seeking a statewide seat. This included Secretary of State candidate Steve Gaynor; Attorney General Mark Brnovich; State Treasurer candidate Kimberly Yee; Superintendent of Public Instruction candidate Frank Riggs; and Governor Doug Ducey, as well as U.S. Senate candidate Rep. Martha McSally.

Many of them – such as Gaynor, Riggs, and McSally – are in close races that will come down to the number of people who show up at the polls.

McSally, who won her congressional race in 2014 by less than 200 votes, said she knows firsthand that all votes matter.

“Honestly, I’m just so grateful for your support and I’m so humbled to be here and be before you tonight, but you know what, we still have some work to do,” McSally said. “Send out some emails, do some Facebook posts, whatever else you can do. Take some people to the polls because it’s really going to come down to turnout right now and every last vote really does matter.”

According to Gov. Ducey, “the country is watching Arizona to see what is going to happen in this United States Senate race. There’s a reason these out-of-state billionaires are coming to Arizona. They believe that they can turn the United States Senate blue and they’re dreaming that they can do it through Arizona. Well, I’ve got news for them, they can keep dreaming.”

One of the main talking points was the man behind Proposition 127, the clean energy mandate that will drastically increase utility prices. The Arizona GOP believes California billionaire Tom Steyer is attempting to turn Arizona into a “carbon copy” of his state and is doing so by attacking Attorney General Mark Brnovich.

“You gotta be tough to be an Arizonan,” Brnovich said. “We’ve dramatically increased the number of criminal prosecutions. We’ve gone after those that are trafficking in the most vulnerable people. What’s the reward for fighting for federalism? For Arizona sovereignty? Some California billionaire decided and said I’m one of his top targets. We do not want to ‘Californicate’ this state.”

“Arizona has this ruby red reputation and I’m proud of it, but I think we need to remember President Donald Trump only won Arizona by three points,” Ducey reminded the crowd. “Those 200,000 that I like to brag on that have moved here, many of them are Californians. So, I want to say to those Californians, welcome back to America and remember that you left California for a reason. We want to protect our low tax, business friendly environment in the state of Arizona.”

The steps of the Yavapai County Court House are historic in more ways than one. Senator Barry Goldwater announced his post-GOP convention presidential campaign and Senator John McCain announced his presidential candidacy on the courthouse steps. McCain then ended every campaign of his there as well. To honor his legacy, Cindy McCain and Senator Jon Kyl spoke on his behalf.

“[I] wish I would’ve had my husband with me tonight because it was such a tradition for our family,” McCain said. “It means a great deal to me to be here, where I’ve always been on an election night, with my husband. So, you allowing me this opportunity to say hello and goodbye to this great tradition means a great deal.”

She addressed both the candidates and the attendees telling them that win or lose, Americans need to come together to make the country a better place.

“Win or lose, we need to figure out how we can come together, work with our allies, and our rivals, and help make this wonderful country better than we found it. [John] felt responsible for helping find solutions to America’s problems and [was] ready to work with anyone to get it done. Good luck to all you, and tomorrow let’s greet the new day and get back to work for the state and for the country we love,” she said.

“Many friends have said, ‘What’s it like to go back to the Senate?’ I will tell you is one thing I’ve noticed is that with John McCain not there, there’s nobody really to hold everybody accountable. That was one of the things he did very well. He was a presence,” Kyl added. “We have a wonderful state and a great slate of candidates running for statewide offices. We’ve got to work very hard to maintain control of the House and Senate here in the state of Arizona.”

Today is election day and the polls will be closing at 7 p.m. To find your polling location click .

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