ShareThisBy JOHN WILDERMUTH
Monday, November 13, 2006
It has been called "electoral Powerball" by the New York Times, a "tawdry idea" by USA Today and "a wretched abomination" by the Arizona Republic, but if Arizona voters pass Proposition 200 on Tuesday, one of those voters will win $1 million for casting a ballot.
Prop. 200 would authorize the nation's first ballot box lottery, in which a $1 million prize will go to one randomly selected Arizona voter.
The measure is the brainchild of Mark Osterloh, a 54-year-old Tucson attorney and ophthalmologist who has made a specialty of challenging Arizona voters with cutting-edge initiatives.
Osterloh said he thought this one up as he was riding his bike across the state during his unsuccessful 2002 campaign for governor, pondering ways to increase turnout for state elections.
"The parties and the state have all got get-out-the-vote efforts, but they're minimally effective," he said. "But when you use the word 'millionaire,' people's ears start to perk up."
Opponents aren't as glib about the measure.
"We believe it's an insult to Arizona voters to say we have to bribe them to vote," said Farrell Quinlan, a spokesman for the Arizona Chamber of Commerce and Industry, which opposes the measure. "It will make Arizona the laughingstock of America if it passes."
Although Osterloh often is dismissed as a political gadfly, he has been a dramatically effective one in Arizona. While he's lost his three runs for elective office, since 1996 he's been a force behind measures that have changed the political look of the state.
In 1996 and in 2000, Osterloh backed a pair of successful "Healthy Arizona" initiatives that made more of the state's working poor eligible for government-paid health care. In 1998, he helped push through the state's "clean money" initiative, which set up a public financing system for political campaigns. And in 2000, voters approved his initiative to form the Independent Redistricting Commission, which took reapportionment powers away from politicians.
Osterloh's new plan would take 20 percent of the money from Arizona's unclaimed lottery prize money and use it for the voter lottery. That money would go into the new "Voter Reward Fund" to provide a $1 million top prize and additional smaller prizes to people who voted in either the primary or general election. People who vote in both will see their names go in twice.
No one argues with the idea that Arizona could use a way to boost voter turnout. Only about 23 percent of the state's registered voters cast ballots in the September primary election, and the number was as low as 19.6 percent in 1998.
Osterloh argues that the $1 million lottery, which would take place for the first time this year if Prop. 200 passes, isn't a bribe but an incentive to vote.
"If it increases voter turnout in Arizona, what does it matter?" he asked.
(E-mail John Wildermuth at jwildermuth(at)sfchronicle.com.
