The logic of an open primary

I was taken back after Attorney General Labrador’s lost court case involving misinformation around the Open Primary Initiative to discover that Dorothy Moon and the Idaho Republican Central Committee’s efforts in opposing the Open Primary Initiative seem to center on ranked-choice voting, right down to a new pamphlet on the subject and Sarah Palin’s experience with it.

Not only are open primaries and ranked-choice not related, but they’re not even close. One is a method for electing public officials, while the other is an attempt to remove voter restrictions. To be perfectly clear, the proposed initiative is only about the latter.

Is it possible they are merely capitalizing on people’s confusion over ranked-choice voting methods to derail the conversation? Are these the same people who would ban the teaching of logic in schools as brainwashing or "partisan?"

Logically speaking, ranked-choice voting and the Open Primary Initiative are not the same thing. This discussion is about open primaries.

We, the people, are not stupid.

There’s too much time left to keep clinging to the low-hanging fruit of ranked choice. Sooner or later, the central committee will have to come up with an argument as to why, in this case, they oppose democracy and freedom while pretending to be for democracy and freedom. This is going to be a difficult spin, but I’m curious to see what they come up with.

ED OHLWEILER

Sandpoint