In Arizona, an Electric Utility Holds an Election, Open Only to Property Owners
In one of America’s least democratic elections, the rule is not one person, one vote. It’s one acre, one vote.
Only property owners in metropolitan Phoenix can cast ballots in the April 7 race for control of the Salt River Project, one of the nation’s largest public power utilities. Early voting began this week for the landowning select, and the more land they own, the more votes they get. A farmer with 200 acres gets 200 votes; a suburban homeowner on a quarter of an acre gets a quarter of a vote. Renters are locked out entirely.
The system dates back to 1903, nearly a decade before Arizona became a state, when just a few thousand people lived in the Valley of the Sun. Since then, sprawling subdivisions have replaced cotton fields, and Phoenix has swelled to the fifth-largest city in the country. But the property ownership requirement has stuck, even as similar restrictions elsewhere were found unconstitutional during the expansion of voting rights in the 1960s.
“It is unconscionable, it is wrong, it is undemocratic,” said Sandy Bahr, director of the Grand Canyon chapter of the Sierra Club. “It is some kind of feudal system.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/14/us/politics/arizona-salt-river-project-voting.html