This year Idaho made another grand leap back into the dark ages. Back in 2011, our leaders closed the Republican primaries. And then last summer they decided to limit this year’s presidential primaries to only those physically present at a caucus, a sure way to eliminate all but the most motivated voters. And the fewer the voters, the more powerful the vote.
March 2nd in the two hours the caucus allowed, a little over 500 people voted representing the voices all the Republicans in Boundary County with their choices for presidential nominees. That’s only 10-percent of our county’s registered Republicans compared to the 52-percent who’d voted in the 2020 primaries. But this was no surprise to the GOP leaders who’d predicted it last February 1st in a Bonners Ferry Herald interview with Staff Writer Emily Bonsant. And sadly, even less, only 7.6-percent of Idaho Republicans voted statewide.”
So why didn’t our House Representatives restore previous primary voting rights for Idahoans by voting on Senate Bill 1186 last year? If they valued the voice of each citizen they would have. And this is something for which all Idahoans should sit up and take notice.
Initially the cancellation of the primaries may have been an inadvertent omission, but what our Representatives are not saying is that they chose not to correct it. Instead of voting on SB1186 that the Senate had resoundingly passed and Governor Brad Little had signed April 16, 2023, our House Representatives let the bill quietly die with most Idahoans conveniently unaware of the implications.
So now voters are. And the word is out. Our House Representatives really don’t care, nor even want, to hear our voice.
And this is not new. For years GOP leaders been trying to do away with the voter initiative process by making it more difficult. And then just a few weeks ago on February 27th, they introduced another bill, HB667, to restrict voting by mail for all voters unless the voter “has an illness or another disability” or because they “anticipate being out of the jurisdiction”. It’s worth noting that in the 2022 general election 129,210 Idaho voters chose to cast ballots by mail.
To limit the voice of the people in any way undermines the credibility and the very foundation of a Democratic Republic. It consolidates power into a small group to advance their priorities, their ideologies, their values, their agendas. And when a minority of the people choose the rulers, it sets the stage for radical and authoritarian governance.
For those reasons and more, most states have done away with caucuses and have expanded availability to vote by using-mail in or walk-in ballots and even open primaries with rank choice voting. In several of those states those decisions were made by the voters themselves through their state’s initiative process. And all Idaho voters will have the same option this fall unless House Joint Resolution 4 and/or House Bill 652 subverts our right to vote directly on this issue.
It’s not the ideals of one party or another that preserve a democracy, but the process by which they elevate their ideals. If we loose fairness in the process, then what? For decades we’ve watched other countries devolve into authoritarian governments through the insidious erosion of fair democratic processes, whether through manipulation, disinformation, intimidation, gerrymandering, or covertly and overtly limiting the people’s vote.
According to the annual country-by-country assessment of political rights and civil liberties, the 2021 report released by Freedom House downgraded the freedom scores of 73 countries, representing 75 percent of the global population. Those affected include not just authoritarian states like China, Belarus, and Venezuela, but also the United States and India.
So to prevent further voter disenfranchisement from happening in Idaho we need to pay attention to what our leaders are saying and not saying, and especially to what they’re doing. If we want to hold onto any shred of democracy, we need to elect leaders who’ll protect our voting rights and prioritize making fair laws over the ideals of any party.
Thomas Jefferson said “We do not have government by the majority. We have government by the majority who participate.” Whoever votes at the caucus’s and the primaries determines who’ll make the laws in Idaho under which we all will live whether we choose to vote or not.
And for those who don’t and decide to “sit out politics”, Abraham Lincoln said ”Elections belong to the people. It’s their decision. If they decide to turn their back on the fire and burn their behinds, then they will just have to sit on their blisters.”
This is the current schedule for the Republican Party events in Idaho:
Idaho · Primaries · President (caucus)
Saturday, March 2
(doors closed at 1 PM and votes were counted between 1 – 2 p.m.)
Idaho · Primaries · United States House of Representatives
Tuesday, May 21, 2024
Idaho · Primaries · Idaho House of Representatives
Tuesday, May 21, 2024
Idaho · Primaries · Idaho Senate
Tuesday, May 21, 2024
This is the current schedule for the Democrat Party events in Idaho:
Idaho · Primaries · United States House of Representatives
Tuesday, May 21, 2024
Idaho · Primaries · Idaho House of Representatives
Tuesday, May 21, 2024
Idaho · Primaries · Idaho Senate
Tuesday, May 21, 2024
Idaho · Primaries · Presidential caucus
Thursday, May 23, 2024 (at the Fairgrounds between 5-8 p.m.)
Georgia Earley
Bonners Ferry