Independents, act now or be quiet

Not a few independents cried voter suppression following Arizona’s 2016 Presidential Preference Election.

And not a few of them will utter the same cry again come the Democratic presidential primary on March 17.

In particular those who will switch their political affiliation, but won’t do it in time to qualify to vote.

Or those who won’t have switched affiliation and will get turned away at the polls. Or the ones who will insist on casting a provisional ballot anyway, only to have their ballot tossed.

There’ll be unhappy campers. You can all but take that to the bank.

I sympathize up to a point. Arizona’s voting rules on primaries can be confusing and stultifying, and they mostly impact independent voters, who account for a third of the state’s nearly 4 million registered voters. More on that in a moment.

But none of this restricted access – whether you consider it major voter disenfranchisement or minor inconvenience – is a fait accompli unless you permit it, either through ignorance or apathy.

So consider this a gentle reminder. If you’re an independent – that is, registered as Party Not Designated – and want to have a say in on who the Democratic presidential nominee should be, you need to:

1) switch your registration to Democrat;

2) and do it by Feb. 18.

That goes for dissatisfied Republicans, as well. (The Arizona GOP canceled the Republican Presidential Preference Election given Donald Trump is running for a second term, a move that may trigger a few cries of voter suppression on its own.)

After Feb. 18, you’re out of luck. And it’d be on you.

Lest you forget, a call last year for the Arizona Democratic Party to open the presidential primary failed, even if the argument to do so has strong merits.

Namely, that Arizona allows independents to vote in all other state primary elections, just not the Presidential Preference Elections, thereby creating a confusing two-tier system. And that the millions of dollars in costs to hold the presidential primaries are borne by taxpayers, not the two dominant political parties.

The confusion may not be huge, but it’s real. More than 18,000 independents showed up to vote in the 2016 Presidential Preference Elections, based on the number of provisional ballots rejected.

Yes, it’s a pain for independents to have to switch for the once-every-fouryears exercise – and then having to switch back afterwards – but it seems a small price for the admission to what is otherwise a partisan exercise.

I don’t subscribe to the belief that Arizona’s rules amount to voter suppression, even if the state can and should act to make them more clear and consistent. Until it does, independents can reregister their affiliation to have their say on a Democratic challenger to Trump, provided they act by Feb. 18.