Originally published in Deseret News | Politics | Jan. 27, 2023
“Two election bills passed the House Government Operations committee, both sponsored by Rep. Jordan Teuscher, R-South Jordan. HB202 changes the threshold for signature gatherers to the current number or 3% of the registered voters of the qualified political party where the candidate resides, whichever is greater. Many heavily Republican districts will see the required number of signatures go up. The other bill is HB205, a bill to change how primary elections are done. Teuscher is proposing that all political entities conducting primaries move to a “contingent” system of voting. Similar to “ranked-choice” voting where a voter ranks the candidates in order of preference and “approval” voting where voters select as many of the candidates that they approve of, this method would distribute votes among only the top two candidates until a 50% plus one threshold is reached.”