Idaho Proposition 1

Travis Bretton
Elections

Since early this year there’s been a huge buzz about the proposed Proposition 1 (referred to as “Prop 1”). Most people I talk to have no idea what, exactly, Prop 1 is all about. I will attempt my best to educate people about this proposal.

Contents

Open Primaries

Prop 1 is comprised of two separate parts. The first part is the source of the short name of the proposition, “Open Primaries”. Instead of a closed primary system where only those voters associated with a party may vote between that party’s candidates, all candidates from every party will be lumped into the same election. A voter will be able to vote for one, and only one, candidate. After the election, the votes are tallied and the top four vote earners will be selected to advance to the general election held in November.

Ranked-choice Voting

The second part of Prop 1 hasn’t had the exposure the “Open Primaries” part has. Ranked-choice voting (referred to as RCV), or sometimes called Instant-runoff voting, has been around since the 18th century. When using RCV, voters must evaluate all candidates for a position and rank them from their most favourite to their least favourite. After all ballots have been cast, the instant-runoff portion activates in the form of several possible rounds.

During what we’ll call Round A, all favourite votes are tallied. If a single candidate earns more than 50% of the votes, then voting is over and that candidate wins. If not, then the the candidate with the least votes is selected for elimination and Round B starts.

In Round B, all the voters who voted for the eliminated candidate now apply their next favourite candidate and the votes are re-tallied. Then the process is repeated with Round A–if there’s a candidate with more than 50%, the voting is over: if not, the lowest candidate is selected for elimination and Round B starts again.

This process continues until a candidate achieves the greater than 50% needed to win.

Pros And Cons

Open Primaries

There’s been a lot of discussion about how Idaho’s closed primary system disenfranchises voters who have not associated with any political party. Proponents argue as follows, “Since, in Idaho, most state offices are generally held by Republicans, the Republican primary is the real decider of the general election. Therefore, since primaries are funded by public taxes, all voters have a right to vote in the Republican primary.” The authors of Prop 1 also claim that they want to prevent extremist candidates in the Republican party by allowing other voters to moderate the selection. And, finally, proponents say that Prop 1 would simply return Idaho to the open primary system that was changed in 2011. On the surface, these arguments don’t sound too terrible. However, it begins to fall apart when looked at closely.

In a Federal Court decision in 2011 (Idaho Republican Party v. Ysursa) and again in 2016 (California Democrat Party v. Jones), the courts ruled that members of parties had the First Amendment right of association. This meant that open primaries infringed on a political party’s right to self select its own candidates. This makes sense given that primaries were first developed in the late 19th century to give the power of candidate selection to the people instead of, as it was before, the party leaders selecting the candidates.

A hypothetical example: a resident of eastern Oregon travels to Idaho and, illegally, votes in Idaho’s US Senator race. This person, after having been arrested for voter fraud, might argue that, since they shop and do business in Idaho, they have the right to influence the result of the race. To this argument, an Idaho resident might argue that Idaho’s US Senator is meant to represent the people of Idaho, not Oregon.

Like the scenario above, in a primary, the people of a party pick, from among several candidates, the candidate they feel best represents them. If this candidate is moderate, it is because the majority of the party is more moderate; likewise a more conservative candidate is selected by a majority of more conservative voters. Voters from other parties and voters who have decided to dis-associate with any party have no right to upset this selection in their favor. As far as the tax argument goes, we pay taxes that support many services we don’t actually use in the name of a better system: schools (for those with no children), public transit (for those who don’t ride the bus), road maintenance (for those who ride bicycles), etc.

Another problem is, while it’s easy to show that independent voters are not disenfranchised for being unable to vote in a primary they have no business voting in in the first place, open primaries can disenfranchise some voters from voting in the general election in which they do have a right to vote. I know a small handful of Constitution and Libertarian voters. They continue to gain my respect for voting their values and principles knowing that their candidate doesn’t have a snowball’s chance in the general election of ever getting elected. Under an open primary, the odds that, between a roster of Republican and Democrat candidates, the Constitution or Libertarian candidates ever making it to the top four is virtually nil. I might not completely agree with my Constitution and Libertarian brothers and sisters, but I believe, that, as Americans, they have a fundamental right to be able to vote for their candidate in the general election.

And, finally, in a little known and never talked about part of Prop 1, the authors have included a small section that gives them the power to lie to the voters. In the “long ballot title” section (basically a summary), this sentence is found:

CANDIDATES COULD LIST ANY AFFILIATION ON THE BALLOT, BUT WOULD NOT REPRESENT POLITICAL PARTIES, AND NEED NOT BE ASSOCIATED WITH THE PARTY THEY NAME.

This sentence originates from section 34-906 on page 11. Basically it allows candidates to say they’re associated with a party with which they are not associated. This is lying. At the state level and in some legislative districts, to openly claim to be a Democrat in a Republican dominated state means a political death sentence. The authors of Prop 1 aren’t truly concerned with moderating the Republicans who are elected. Under closed primaries very conservative Republicans consistently challenge and are defeated by more moderate Republicans. What is truly at the bottom of the open primaries initiative is this line that will allow Democrats to masquerade as Republicans and therefore have a better chance of getting elected.

With this silently included clause and the larger addition of RCV, Prop 1 would not return Idaho’s election system to what it was before 2011. Prop 1 is a radical change to Idaho’s election system.

Ranked Choice Voting

Proponents of RCV cite basically two positives about RCV:

  • Winners are derived from more consensus meaning more satisfied voters
  • Voters can vote more of their values and conscience

Like open primaries, these seem like legitimate reasons to adopt RCV. I remember investigating RCV in college and thinking this was a better system. But, also like open primaries, there are a number of flaws that are just too glaring to ignore.

  1. Prohibitively expensive: According to the Idaho Secretary of State’s office, the cost of implementing Prop 1 can be as high as $40 million. A price tag of this size is significant and should have been a factor when creating Prop 1. However, the authors never consulted with the Secretary of State’s office either to research the feasibility or the cost.
  2. Unreasonably complicated: Unlike Alaska’s version of RCV, which applies to just six offices, Idaho’s RCV would apply to twenty offices. With the open primary likely advancing four candidates for each office, voters would need to research and rank 80 candidates. While it is unlikely that all twenty offices will be up for election at the same time, it is a fact that eleven offices will be up for election in 2026 when Prop 1 is scheduled to be implemented. This will result in 44 candidates to rank. Most voters want to make informed voting decisions and it is simply unreasonable to require them to research and rank this many candidates. The fear is that, faced with uncertainty, most voters will choose to not vote at all or only choose their favored candidate and risk Ballot Exhaustion.
  3. Ballot Exhaustion: This describes what can happen when a voter did not rank all of the candidates for an office. When a ballot does not have a selection matching the runoff round, that ballot is discarded. A voter who took the time to vote is now denied that right and privilege. In the 2022 Special Congressional Election in Alaska, the ballots that listed the eliminated candidate, Nick Begich, as their first choice were reapportioned. However, more than 20% (11,000 plus) of Begich’s ballots did not have a second choice and so were trashed.
  4. Long Calculation Times: Because of the way the instant-runoff process works, no votes can be counted until every ballot has been received. Depending on how long mail-in ballots and military ballots are accepted, this could mean an election could take a week or more to decide. While a seemingly minor objection, an extended period increases the chances of losing ballots or fraudulent ballots entering the system. One of our best protections against this is the speed at which tabulation occurs.
  5. Recounts: Idaho law specifies that, in a very close election, ballots must be counted by hand. Given that instant-runoff is handled by a computer algorithm, a hand recount would be very expensive and take months. Prop 1 itself does not contain any provision or changes concerning recounts and the authors, when interviewed, have no idea how a recount would be handled sanely.

Resources

A lot of reading and investigating went into helping my understanding of Prop 1. Please investigate and do your own due diligence. These resources are invaluable for understanding Prop 1. While not covered in this post, several of these resources take a look at who is behind Prop 1 and where the funding comes from.