STORY AND PHOTOS BY KAREN BOSSICK

In 21 days, Wood River Valley residents will be asked to decide whether to change the state’s closed primary election through Proposition One.

If Proposition One passes, Idaho’s current system of closed primaries would go away and all candidates would participate in a top-four primary. That means voters would not have to affiliate with a party, able to vote only for candidates of that party as they do now in Idaho’s closed primary system.

Instead, voters will be able to pick their favorite of any party on the ballot.

The top four vote getters in the primary would advance to the general election where voters participate in what’s called ranked-choice voting. Under this system, voters cast their first-place vote for their favorite candidate, second-place vote for their next favorite candidate and so on.

If one of the candidates gets more than 50 percent of the votes, that candidate wins. If no one gets more than 50 percent of the first-choice votes, the candidate with the fewest votes is eliminated and his or her second-place votes are assigned to the remaining three candidates.

If still no one has more than 50 percent of the votes, the third-place candidate is removed and that candidate’s votes are dispersed among the remaining two.

Wood River Valley residents recently got to hear from three men who offered their thoughts on the proposition during a panel discussion at Ketchum’s Community Library.

McKay Cunningham, graduate professor and director of Graduate Initiatives at The College of Idaho, explained how the Republican majority in the Idaho legislature established the closed primary system in 2011. The format cuts out 275,000 non-affiliated or independent voters in Idaho, he said. So, one can argue that whoever wins the Republican primary will win the general election.

Todd Achilles, co-founder of Veterans for Idaho Voters, said he represents veterans who took an oath for Constitution and who believe in fair elections.

A third of Idahoans can’t participate in primaries under the current system because they don’t choose to identify with a party, said Achilles, who teaches public policy at Boise State University and Berkeley. As a result, Idaho has one of the least competitive elections in the nation.

Former Idaho governor Butch Otter is chairing the campaign to pass Proposition One, which also has the backing of other Republican leaders who want to take elections out of the hands of extremist Republicans. It restores voter rights and gives more choice on the ballet, he added.

“Closed primaries are not fair to all voters in a supermajority Republican state,” he added. “We’re trying to let people—not a party--control what happens in elections. Right now, the Republican Party controls our election.”

Trent Clark, former chair of the Idaho Republican Party, said the solution is to have the Republican party be outward looking.

Achilles refuted that: “Republicans could give us open primaries tomorrow, but they won’t. In fact, (Republican Party Chair Dorothy) Moon is making it harder to register as a Republican.”

If Proposition One passes, there likely will be legal challenges, Cunningham said.

“But it’s not a new thing—it’s been around a long time,” Cunningham said. “It has not been deemed illegal or unconstitutional.”

In fact, the Idaho legislature enacted ranked choice voting for party primaries in the early 1900s, requiring voters to vote for their first and second choice in primary elections where there were more than two candidates for the same office. The idea was to take primaries out of the hands of party committees and put them in the hands of voters. But, later, legislators repealed it.

Idaho is one of four states looking at ranked choice voting in this year’s election. Alaska and Maine already have ranked choice voting. Alaskans elected Mary Peltola, their first Alaska Native female to Congress, under the ranked voting system. She had 49 percent of first-choice votes on the first round, then picked up enough votes on the second round to beat Sarah Palin.

Ranked choice promotes consensus, said Cunningham. It also has the potential for more moderate outcomes—a system that makes the largest number of voters happy, versus a system that potentially leads to a winner without the backing of a majority of voters in the state.

Clark said Idaho Sec. of State Phil McGrane has estimated it could cost between $25 million and $40 million to buy new voting systems should Proposition One pass.

But Achilles refuted that. Counties in Utah that use rank choice voting use the same machines as Idaho does, he said, and they made the necessary changes in house at zero cost.

Clark also said that it would be impossible to enact rank choice voting in Idaho because the state’s legislative districts have multiple counties.

“This is an overhaul of our election that has not been completely thought through,” he said.

Achilles, however, said that it’s not impossible to enact rank choice voting in Idaho given the technology available today.

“There is a gap between what Idahoans want and what the Idaho legislature does,” Cunningham said, pointing to such laws as one requiring Idaho public and school libraries to move materials deemed harmful to children or face lawsuits. “This proposition would address that.”

Achilles said Idahoans need to ask themselves whether they’re better off since closed primaries were introduced in 2012: “Sixty percent of Idahoans say we’re not only the right track. We need to put into place a system that puts people before parties.”