A coalition of supporters gathered simultaneously in Tucson and on the Senate lawn at the Arizona State Capitol Wednesday to launch the No on 105 campaign – an initiative they say would count people who don’t want to vote.

Proposition 105, the so-called Majority Rules proposition, states any future ballot initiative that imposes additional taxes or spending must be approved by a majority of registered voters, not a majority of those actually casting ballots.

Opponents say if this initiative passes, not voting is as good as checking the no box in the ballot box. Proponents say the purpose of this initiative is to bring ballot box tax hikes to a higher threshold.

Barbara Klein, vice president of the State League of Women Voters, said Proposition 105 encourages voter apathy. She said if the initiative passes, non-voters in an election would automatically be counted as negative votes.

“This month 88 years ago, women got the right to vote. Prop 105 would destroy this right,” Klein said. “It would empower those who choose not to vote and suppress democracy in Arizona.”

In the legislature, a bill raising taxes must pass by a two-thirds vote, but this isn’t true at the ballot box, said Garrick Taylor, a spokesman for the Majority Rules campaign. To pass, a ballot initiative must receive a majority of the votes cast. The initiative does not affect local or county spending measures, but only deals with citizen initiatives involving taxes, Taylor said.

“Why inflict taxes on all of Arizona when only a portion of the people decided on it?” Taylor said.

Rodolfo Espino, assistant professor of political science, said the initiative sounds progressive but is deceiving. Currently there are about 2.7 million registered voters in Arizona, according to Secretary of State Jan Brewer. Usually only about 50 percent of voters turn out for the average election, he said.

“That means everybody who turns out would have to vote for it in order for it to pass, and that’s not going to happen,” Espino said. “This makes it all but impossible to raise taxes through an initiative. On the surface it might sound great.”

Espino sited the following example: A group of ASU students collect enough signatures to get an initiative on the ballot that would add a half cent tax increase to be put towards improvements in higher education. Efforts like this and sin taxes, he said, would be difficult to pass.

“The beer and alcohol industry are pushing this. It’s easy to put a sin tax on the ballot and pass it. Beer wins. People not turning out to vote are, in a sense, casting a ballot,” Espino said. “But (Prop 105) probably will pass, then it’ll be challenged, and it’ll slowly moved though courts. Then in five or six years maybe it will be deemed unconstitutional.”

Reach the reporter at philip.haldiman@asu.edu.