Proposition 1 is anything but open

Proposition 1 is on the ballot this fall under the guise of “open primaries.” How open is Prop 1?

It creates a primary system where candidates don’t have to identify their political affiliation.

It hides that instituting ranked choice voting is its primary goal. A voting system that requires a computer algorithm to redistribute and recount votes repeatedly until a single candidate wins the majority. A process that requires re-running the same computer algorithm to identify the winner during a recount or audit.

It’s a voting method that makes it easy to toss out votes. Imagine the candidates are as follows:

1. Charlie Brown

2. Linus

3. Snoopy

4. Lucy

I only rank Charlie Brown. Linus is too liberal. Snoopy is too elusive. Lucy can’t be trusted. No one candidate received the majority, and poor Charlie Brown received the least votes. As the next round is tabulated, my vote is tossed because I didn’t rank other candidates. I have no say in who the final elected official will be.

With Idaho’s current voting process, sweet Charlie Brown and nasty Lucy wouldn’t have made it on the ballot. The election would have been Linus vs Snoopy. I would have spent time learning about Snoopy to make a decision that would have a meaningful impact on the election.

We have a simple, reliable, one-man-one vote process that works. Why spend $40M of our tax dollars to implement a process that states like Alaska are working hard to repeal?

Vote no to Prop 1.

JEN COX

Clark Fork