by Clark Corbin, Idaho Capital Sun
A district court judge in Idaho has denied Attorney General Raúl Labrador’s latest legal challenge to a ballot issue that seeks to end the state’s closed party primary elections and create ranked-choice voting in the general election.
On Thursday, District Court Judge Patrick J. Miller dismissed Labrador’s motion for summary judgment seeking to have the signatures on the ballot initiative declared invalid.
“The evidence the Attorney General submits actually negates the idea that the defendants perpetrated false statements to thousands of persons who actually signed the petition,” Miller wrote in Thursday’s ruling.
Labrador had alleged that volunteer signature gatherers supporting the Idahoans for Open Primaries coalition misled the public and fraudulently obtained the signatures used to qualify the ballot initiative for the election.
But in a ruling issued less than 24 hours after the two sides were in Ada County District Court on Wednesday, Miller wrote that Labrador’s “principal argument is not well taken for numerous reasons.”
“First, the record is devoid of any evidence that the required ballot titles were not included on the initiative shown to voters or that the short title was not on every initiative signature page,” Miller wrote. “As pointed out by defendants’ counsel at oral argument, the short title was in large font on the bottom of every page of signature sheets.”
Miller also wrote that Labrador failed to establish that using the phrase “open primary initiative” to describe the initiative was false. In several instances throughout the ruling, Miller was critical of either Labrador’s legal arguments or the declaration statements provided by some of Labrador’s witnesses. In one instance, Miller wrote that the summary provided by one of Labrador’s witnesses “is not accurate” in the court’s judgment.
On the other hand, Miller wrote that materials posted by Idahoans for Opens Primaries on the group’s website “appear to be very accurate descriptions of the type of primary and election the initiative would create.”
In a statement released Thursday, Labrador expressed disappointment with the ruling, disagreed with the judge and reiterated his objections to the initiative.
“At least, our legal challenge has raised awareness about the true nature of the initiative,” Labrador wrote in a statement released by a spokesman. “It is now up to Idaho voters to decide whether they want to replace Idaho’s primary system with a top-four primary system and fundamentally alter Idaho’s orderly general elections with an expensive ranked choice voting system that has resulted in confusion, delays and widespread voting errors in other states.”
In Idaho, a ballot initiative is a form of direct democracy where the people of Idaho – not the Idaho Legislature – vote on whether or not to pass a proposed law. The ballot initiative will appear on the ballot as Proposition 1, and it would take a simple majority of votes to approve it.
On Aug. 13, the Idaho Supreme Court dismissed an earlier version of Labrador’s fraud complaint without holding oral arguments on the case.
Thursday’s district court ruling clears the way for the initiative to go up for a vote during the Nov. 5 general election. County clerks and the Idaho Secretary of State’s Office have already validated the signatures used to qualify the ballot initiative for the election, and the Idaho Secretary of State’s Office has been moving forward preparing for the ballot initiative to go up for a vote.
If approved, Proposition 1 would make changes to both primary elections and general elections in Idaho.
First, it would end Idaho’s closed party primary elections by repealing House Bill 351, the closed primary law the Idaho Legislature passed in 2011. Proposition 1 would replace closed primary elections with a single primary election that is open to all voters and all candidates, regardless of party affiliation. Under Proposition 1, the top four candidates who receive the most votes in the primary election would all advance to the general election, regardless of party affiliation. That means that the general election could feature multiple – or even all four – candidates from the same political party.
Under Idaho’s closed primary law, political parties do not have to allow voters to vote in their primary elections unless they are formally affiliated with that political party. In Idaho, more than 265,000 of the state’s 1 million registered voters are unaffiliated voters who are not allowed to vote in closed primary elections. In the most recent state elections, only the Idaho Democratic Party allowed outside voters to vote in its primary election, the Idaho Secretary of State’s Office previously said. The Republican, Libertarian and Constitution Party primary elections were all closed.
Proposition 1 would also change general elections in Idaho by creating ranked-choice voting, which is sometimes called an instant runoff. Under that system, voters would still vote for their favorite candidate. They would also have the option of ranking the remaining candidates in order of preference – second choice, third and fourth. Ranking candidates would be optional, not a requirement for voters. Under Proposition 1, the general election candidate with the fewest votes would be eliminated and instead their votes would go to the second choice of candidate on those ballots. That process would continue until there are two candidates left and the candidate with the most votes is elected the winner.
Moving to ranked-choice voting would likely delay the amount of time it takes for the public in Idaho to receive initial election results because of the additional tabulations. Idaho Secretary of State Phil McGrane previously told the Idaho Capital Sun he isn’t sure how much longer it would take to count the results because the state has not used that system before.
McGrane also told legislative leaders in July that it could cost at least $25 million to $40 million if Idaho needs to replace its vote tabulation systems in order to process ranked-choice ballots. However, Idahoans for Open Primaries spokesman Luke Mayville has said there is low-cost software available that could be certified to process ranked-choice ballots in Idaho and the state does not need to pay to replace its vote tabulation equipment. Mayville is co-founder of the group Reclaim Idaho, which sponsored the 2018 Medicaid expansion ballot initiative that more than 60% of Idaho voters voted for.
Idaho Capital Sun is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Idaho Capital Sun maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Christina Lords for questions: info@idahocapitalsun.com. Follow Idaho Capital Sun on Facebook and X.