Deadline looms for voters to declare party

SANDPOINT — If voters have any second thoughts about their declared political party affiliation, they have until March 14 to get them sorted out.

That’s the deadline for an elector currently registered by party to change their party or become unaffiliated, according to the Idaho Secretary of State.

The deadline falls on the last day political hopefuls seeking elected office in Idaho can declare their candidacy, which means voters may have to make up their mind on a party affiliation before they even know who the full slate of candidates are in the 2014 election cycle.

The party affiliation declaration deadline is the final step in the state’s shift to a closed Republican primary, which requires voters to declare their affiliation with the GOP in order to vote in that election.

The Idaho GOP filed suit against the state in U.S. District Court to keep Democrats and others from crossing over and influencing Republican contests. A federal judge ruled that Idaho’s 38-year-old system for holding open primaries was unconstitutional, which resulted in the Legislature to passing a bill in 2011 to implement a closed primary system.

Affiliated voters who want to change their party will be stuck with their affiliation if they miss the March 14 deadline.

“If they declared a party, they have to stick with that party,” said Ilene Goff, an election clerk at the secretary of state in Boise.

However, unaffiliated voters who miss the March 14 declaration deadline can declare their affiliation at the polls, according to Goff.

Under the closed GOP primary, only declared Republicans can vote a GOP ticket. But registered Republicans are free to cross over and vote in the Democratic primary because that party’s primary remains open to all.

“In the near future, I don’t see that changing,” said Dean Ferguson, director of communications for the Idaho Democratic Party.

Ferguson said that a decision to hold it open beyond the 2014 election cycle ultimately rests with party leadership.

District 1 state Sen. Shawn Keough, a Republican who represents Bonner and Boundary counties, said she supported the bill closing the GOP primary because the party’s other alternative would have been to move to a caucus system.

Under a caucus scenario, large swaths of Republican voters — including military personnel serving overseas — could be disenfranchised from the voting process.

“It really shuts out the voting public depending on how it’s structured,” Keough said. “I did not want to go to a caucus system, so this was the only alternative that was available.”