By Clarice McKenney
Full disclosure: I strongly support Proposition 1, which will be on our November ballot, because I want every voter in Idaho, regardless of party affiliation, to be able to select the Primary candidates who are best suited for their communities, regardless of the candidates’ party affiliation or unaffiliation. Like many of the 2,000 Idaho volunteers for Open Primaries, for almost a year I studied the issue and then stood in public spaces asking registered voters to sign the Open Primaries Initiative in order to qualify it for the ballot.
Like all 2,000 volunteers, I want to be able to select the right candidate for the position, not the candidate that a small, powerful group in either party picks. And we are not alone in wanting that. There are many jurisdictions in Utah, the States of Maine and Alaska that have adopted Open Primaries.
Studies show that as many as 80-percent of voters using Open Primaries like them. As many new residents in Boundary County shared with me in our discussions over the last year, “Why should I have to declare a party to vote in the primary?”
The way Idaho’s Open Primaries would work is that every registered voter, regardless of party, will vote in the same primary election with the same slate of candidates, regardless of the candidates’ parties. The top four vote getters from the primary will be on the ballot in the general election. During the general election, voters will have the choice, not a requirement, to select one, two, three or four choices and rank them accordingly. If no candidate gets a majority, there will be an automatic runoff process that is far easier, without recalling all voters who voted for the traditional runoff, and is less expensive than a traditional runoff.
My mother was the first member of her family to leave Maine in over 300 years. When I asked my cousin what people in Maine think of Open Primaries, she said the only problem is that “many are too stubborn” to select more than one candidate in the general election.
As I have told everyone who listened during the past year, “Idaho voters will not have to pick more than one candidate, but it’s to your advantage as a voter to pick more than one and rank them because if your first choice is eliminated, your second choice wins your one vote.” So it sounds from my cousin’s perspective that Mainers largely are not taking “advantage” of their voter advantage under Ranked Choice Voting in the General Elections.
Like many other volunteers, after Open Primaries qualified as Proposition 1 in this November’s election, I have called hundreds of voters in my community to make sure they know the truth about Proposition 1. So when I began seeing signs advertising what sounded like a meeting that was biased toward No on Proposition 1 at Covenant Church, my husband, Rob, and I attended with a friend from our own church.
The first thing we saw from the pews was a life-sized cardboard cutout standing in the front of the church sanctuary next to the audiovisual screen. Elaina Quinn, president of Panhandle Republican Women, opened the meeting by saying she hoped attendants would learn everything they needed to tell people to vote against Proposition 1.
Well into the meeting, after speakers mocked our county clerk for not coming to the meeting, I raised my hand. I said the signs along the highway had made it clear that the meeting was against Prop. 1. Then I asked why anyone would expect an objective official like our county clerk to speak under these circumstances.
Bonner County Clerk Mike Rosedale, who said he only attended to answer questions, found himself being the night’s first speaker. He began with two truthful, objective-sounding things: “Proposition 1 is nonpartisan” and “Idaho has one of the safest election systems in the country.”
Then he made several false statements to the group, which included church members and representatives of Boundary County Republican Central Committee, a cosponsor of the event.
After Canyon County Clerk Rick Hagabaum’s letter against Prop 1 was flashed on the screen, Rosedale admitted that he was a cosigner on the Hagabaum letter.
Overall, Rosedale said Open Primaries will be too difficult for county clerks’ offices to administer and too expensive to replace the counties’ voting machines. He got some gasps from the audience when he stated “… one of the only two companies certified (to provide voting machines) in the country that we have access to is Dominion.”
After the meeting, I reached out to Idahoans for Open Primaries Coalition Leader Luke Mayville about this and other statements. “This is false,” Mayville stated in his reply. “Former Utah County Josh Daniels, who oversaw the implementation of ranked choice voting in his county, has analyzed Idaho’s election system and found that RCV can be implemented without replacing Idaho’s existing machines.”
Rosedale said, “Every person has the right to demand a recount, but we can’t do that if this passes and withstands the attorney general’s court suits.”
This also is false, Mayville wrote. “Ranked choice elections have been subject to recounts across the country.”
Next to speak was a woman identifying herself as an Iraq War veteran. Lindsay Bertollo said she moved from Alaska because of the Open Primary system, which is on the ballot in Alaska this November and may be repealed. Along with her personal opinions about everything from Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski to the way Alaska officials administer their open primaries, she reported having first-hand experience as a poll worker in Alaska. After fleeing Alaska’s Open Primaries, according to Bertollo, her family was traveling through Bonners Ferry and saw the “Welcome to Trump Country” sign, which made them feel at home.
She ended by stating, “Ranked Choice Voting is not about Open Primaries.”
Mayville countered that. “The district court ruled in a suit from Idaho Attorney General Raul Labrador earlier this month that Open Primary is an accurate term to use when describing Proposition 1.”
Michael Angiletta, the main speaker, is cofounder of Idaho Secure Elections. Angiletta admitted, “I’m not going to be objective. We’re a 501 C-4 dedicated to securing Idaho’s elections. Hopefully, we won’t pass Open Primaries.”
He quickly showed slides that he referred to as “the data showing how bad Proposition 1 is.” He told the audience that “a Boise State poll showed 2/3 of Idahoans trust the elections. We’re going to try to get that to 100-percent approval.”
“By the way,” Angiletta said, “I was scheduled to debate Luke Mayville at Boise State before he backed out.”
Not having a clue about that during the meeting, I kept my mouth shut. But that did not fit my personal experience of Luke, who I know personally is a man of courage and integrity. So I had included Angiletta’s quote in my email to Luke.
A few days after I emailed Luke Mayville, he replied, and this is what he wrote about Angiletta’s accusation. “This is a false statement, and the organizer of the debate will confirm this. When Michael Angiletta was invited to represent the ‘No’ side, there was a different spokesperson—not me—scheduled to represent the ‘Yes’ side. I could not have ‘backed out’ of a debate that I was never scheduled for.”
Angiletta told everyone that the Voter Guide only has a statement from Reclaim Idaho. This also is false because the Voter Guide, which was in our mailboxes a few days after the meeting, includes a statement against Prop 1 by the Idaho House Republican Caucus.
He also claimed that Ranked Choice Voting takes longer to vote and to process and the results sometimes take weeks or even months, he said.
“In Utah, results in ranked choice elections have typically been reported the same night as the election or the morning after,” Mayville wrote.
Angiletta said RCV showed dips in the number of voters instead of increasing primary voting. “It represses voter turnout especially for new and older voters because it’s too confusing.”
Mayville maintains that research shows that RCV has very little .
Angiletta said, “Pro Prop 1 gets more than half its funding from out of state and most of that is from dark money PACs. Establishment Republicans are directly connected to that. Don’t let anyone tell you that Reclaim Idaho is nonpartisan. Their Resource Manager Alicia Adam celebrated the arson in Sandpoint.”
Mayville’s response: “He’s referring to Alicia Abbot, who has not worked for Reclaim Idaho in the past three years.” (Reclaim Idaho is one of half a dozen organizations in the statewide, grassroots coalition called Idahoans for Open Primaries.) “Prop 1 has received donations from more Idahoans than any campaign in recent memory,” Mayville wrote. “It has been supported by some large donors as well, but the typical donation is somewhere in the range of $40.”
Angiletta concluded with, “The question I am asking you tonight is, ‘Does Ranked Choice Voting build trust or damage and destroy it?’ We (Idaho Sec Elections) started because of Prop 1 but we’re here to stay. The Heritage Foundation ranks Idaho 28th in the Union, but once we defeat Prop 1, we’ll work with our legislators in Boise for integrity.”
Speaking for 2,000 volunteers who are working to inform voters about Proposition 1, I can only say that Angiletta’s reliance on the Heritage Foundation speaks volumes about the ties between the opposition to Proposition 1 and Christian Nationalism’s theocratic politics. In her 2019 book, “The Power Worshippers,” Kathryn Stewart reveals the underlying history and plans of the Heritage Foundation, which is one of the main organizations driving Christian Nationalism, to take over all aspects of our government and make their own fundamentalist Christianity totally powerful over all other forms of Christianity and all other religions in this country.
When I rose near the end of the nearly two-hour meeting, I asked everyone to hear one very important truth from me as one of about 2,000 Idaho volunteers who have spent the past year telling voters about Open Primaries and Ranked Choice Voting. “You do not have to pick more than one candidate in the general election,” I explained. Contrary to what the speaker said, your ballot will not be tossed in the garbage any more than ballots are tossed when voters choose losing candidates in today’s elections.”
As I had stood up to give my perspective, I had seen Sandpoint resident Jennifer McKnight in the group of respectful listeners. She and I had met this summer at the Boundary County Fair when she ran the “No on 1” booth and I ran the “Yes on 1” booth. She had introduced me to her husband and son one of those hot days and gave me water bottles with her No on 1 message on them.
I liked Jen from the moment we met, and at the end of Thursday’s meeting, she wrapped me in a warm hug and whispered, “It’s hard to be in the minority.” Her loving compassion was a beautiful moment for me. Best of all, Jen is a friend who I’ve noticed walks her Christian talk, which speaks with the greatest authority.