Open Primary Initiative is a Trojan horse

While open primaries represent a step forward in democracy, the Open Primary Initiative is merely a pretext for what is truly sought: ranked-choice voting.

Ranked choice voting risks the election of the third or fourth-best candidate in the minds of voters who lack consensus. It is un-American and risks systematizing mediocrity. It would produce the same kind of machine power politics that gave us Dan Quayle, Sarah Palin, and Kamala Harris. Their lack of appeal is what we should expect with the outcomes of ranked-choice voting.

We meet every other November to choose a person to represent our constituency. Such a person must have the qualities of leadership, ambition, commitment to the people of our county and of Idaho, and the intelligence and persuasive power to win both hearts and minds. Open elections are a step forward to finding worthy men and women. In great contrast, ranked choice uploads the compromised candidate, the mediocre, and the also-ran. Rather than push our democracy forward it would plunge us even further toward the Idiocracy. No thanks.

Send this Initiative back to the drawing board. Vote against the Open Primaries Initiative.

PETER KRIZ

Sandpoint