If you don’t know who Russell Pearce is, or if you don’t know what SB 1070 is, you’re either incredibly ignorant about your surroundings or you’re an out of state freshman. The Arizona Senate President Pearce has been recalled, and now faces a special election for his seat. Among those running against him in the recall election is Olivia Cortes, a naturalized American citizen for some 40 years.

Cortes, who describes herself as not being a politician by trade, has been accused of being a sham candidate who is only running to steal votes from the anti-Pearce voters so that it inhibits Republican candidate Jerry Lewis’s chances. However, after legal filings were made to have her removed from the ballot, Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Edward Burke refused to bar her.
Burke said that there is nothing to suggest she isn’t sincere about her candidacy. Burke says that anyone who contends her motives ought to express that through the ballot box and not through the courts. One can’t help but agree. But are voters actually competent enough to identify a sham?

Voters are constantly discarded and disregarded as ignorant and ill-informed. To be honest, what have they done to prove otherwise? When the excrement “hits the fan” so to speak, the huddled masses jump ship and climb on board with the next best thing. If a candidate shows even the slightest sign of instability or has a subtle misstep, even their most adamant supporters flee and chime in for the opposition. That’s what we’re witnessing with the Pearce recall.

Don’t mistake this as some sort of defense for Pearce, it’s just very interesting that a man who stomped his competition by winning the district 18 race and gathering 57 percent of the vote is being recalled. His closest competitor, Andrew Sherwood, garnered only 34 percent. So how is it that a man who just under a year ago easily locked up his seat is on the ballot again? How is it that in less than a year, all faith has been lost? He’s the senate president, who many Republicans championed for his persistence in passing SB 1070, yet his job is on the line again.

It’s all because voters change their mindsets like seasonal attire. Last fall Pearce was all the rage, but now he’s cast out like last year’s fashion. How is it that confidence has faded so immediately? One year is a pretty rapid time to lose faith no matter how you spin it. How much can you honestly screw up or achieve in one year when everything you do as a politician is calculated and bartered countless times before any actual action is taken.

All in all, voters are so very fickle and it honestly shouldn’t come as a surprise that there might be a sham candidate. If someone is so quick to hop on board with Lewis maybe they’ll do the same for Cortes and dilute the support of Lewis. Meanwhile, the people who have long standing problems with Pearce will recognize and vote for the candidate they actually have faith in as a replacement for Pearce.

This recall election is indicative that Americans not only have little faith in the election process, but those that vote have limited patience in the candidates too. That inhibits the process further from being successful.

— Storm Byrd is the Perspectives editor. He can be reached at letters@wildcat.arizona.edu.