A coalition of Arizona voters had created a ballot measure to force accountability on one of the sloppiest taxpayer-funded voucher programs in the nation. But voucher supporters used an assortment of cheap tricks and technicalities to invalidate enough of the 420,000 signatures thrown out by the state's supreme court (members appointed by voucherphile Gov. Ducey) that the measure ultimately lacked enough accepted signatures to make it to the ballot.
The measure, which Betsy DeVos's American Federation for Children called a "calamity," would have forced some basic accountability and transparency measures on the program:
Safety measures to protect students, including a requirement that voucher-funded schools follow fire and safety codes and require background checks for all staff.Bans on use of voucher funds for luxury and non-education items.
Return of unused voucher funds to public school district. Currently, families can bank unused voucher funds indefinitely, so those taxpayer dollars can end up filling a family’s college fund. In July 2025, reporter Craig Harris reported that around 10,000 accounts had banked over $10,000; over $440 million was sitting in accounts.
Reporting requirement to show how much voucher money is going to the private schools that accept taxpayer-funded voucher money.
Creation of a subsidy cap. Require that taxpayer-funded vouchers be available only to those families with income at or below $150,000. Currently pretty much all families are eligible, no matter how wealthy.
Require academic measures. Voucher-funded schools would have to administer and report results on the same sorts of standardized tests used by public schools. Currently, private schools have no requirements to show how well they are actually educating the students whose tuition is subsidized by taxpayers.
This was just too much for the voucher supporters to bear. It would be a calamity if families couldn't spend taxpayer-funded voucher dollars on ninja training, diapers and cosmetics.
A post from Save Our Schools Arizona outlines some of the tactics used by the voucher lobby. Lawsuits challenged thousands of signatures on technicalities, throwing 47 different categories of objections. In one case, over 10,000 signatures were thrown out because a petition circulator used a mailbox instead of her home address out of fear for her safety. In one of the most odious examples, pro-voucher groups circulated a fake version of a petition. About 20,000 people signed both the fake and the real to make sure they had their bases covered, but that opened up a double-count of "invalid" signatures.
After picking and nibbling by the army of voucher lawyers and lobbyists, the petition was left about 12,000 signatures short.
It sucks, but the voucher lobby has a long history of promoting their program over the objections of actual voters. And for all the talk of school choice trading accountability for autonomy, Arizona has aggressively resisted any sort of accountability for their taxpayer-funded voucher program.
That is one of the major takeaways from this dustup. Voucher fans weren't resisting an attempt to end vouchers or shut down vouchers; they were fighting and kicking and throwing money to ward off an attempt to impose some basic accountability and transparency. AFC claims that "a super-majority want a program that both works for families and ensures responsible stewardship of taxpayer dollars" and that the union (because they love to invoke the Big Scary Union) "will continue to exploit these sentiments to advance supposed reforms that gut the program."
Well, yes. But "gut the program"? Either that language is a gross exaggeration meant to inspire fear and panic, or it's accurate because the point of the voucher program is not education, but to give a bunch of taxpayer-funded entitlements to wealthy Arizonans to spend on whatever they want with no oversight or accountability. And if that's really the point of the program, then maybe gutting is in order.
The other takeaways? There's a great deal of grass roots opposition to the Arizona taxpayer-funded voucher grift, and therefore a huge amount of fear among the voucher promoters, a bunch of frightened folks on a throne of bundled money. Can big piles of money keep the uppity peasants away from the castle walls forever?
No state has done more to actively overrule the voices of actual voters on this issue; ironic as the state is one of the few that lets ordinary citizens propose ballot initiatives (though that capability is being slowly choked in a sea of red tape). Here's hoping that the hundreds of thousands of voters behind those signatures find other ways to make their feelings known in the state capital.
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