By Becky Pallack | Arizona Daily Star
SAN FRANCISCO — A panel of three federal judges will decide whether Tucson voters get to keep the city election system they chose in the 1920s or if they’ll have to choose a new system this year.
The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals heard arguments Tuesday in a legal challenge to Tucson’s election system brought by the Public Integrity Alliance and a group of Republican voters.
They claim Tucson’s city election system — which is a ward-only primary election and an at-large general election — violates their constitutional rights under the Equal Protection Clause, the “one man, one vote” protection. That’s because some people are excluded from the primary election based on the ward in which they live.
