Open primaries initiative will appear on November ballot, judge rules
Spirit Lake resident Loree Peery gathered signatures for the open primary initiative outside the Coeur d’Alene Library in December 2023.
KAYE THORNBRUGH/Press file
An initiative that would open Idaho’s primary elections to all voters and implement ranked choice voting for general elections will appear on the November ballot, a judge ruled Thursday morning.
Fourth Judicial District Judge Patrick Miller ruled against Idaho Attorney General Raúl Labrador, who had sued to stop the initiative from going before voters.
The initiative has gathered enough valid signatures to qualify for the Nov. 5 general election, but Labrador argued that signature gatherers did not adequately explain that the proposed ballot measure would implement ranked choice voting for general elections, thus deceiving signers.
Initiative organizers denied these allegations. The court ruled in their favor.
“The evidence the attorney general submits actually negates the idea that the defendants perpetrated false statements to thousands of persons who actually signed a petition,” Miller’s ruling said in part.
Organizers said the ruling is a “significant win” for Idaho voters and the thousands of Idahoans who signed the open primaries petition.
“AG Labrador has tried at every turn to suppress the voices of Idahoans and disrupt the ballot initiative process,” Luke Mayville, spokesperson for Idahoans for Open Primaries, said in a news release Thursday morning. “But today, the people of Idaho prevail.”
The ballot measure will need a simple majority to pass in November. It proposes two changes to elections for most public offices.
First, the measure would abolish Idaho’s party primaries and instead create a system where all candidates participate in the same primary election and voters may vote on all candidates. The top four vote-earners for each office would advance to the general election, regardless of party affiliation. The measure would also create an instant runoff or ranked choice voting system for the general election.
In that system, voters choose their favorite candidate and may then rank up to three other candidates in order of preference. Voters are not required to rank more than one candidate.
If no candidate gets more than 50% of the vote after the first-choice rankings are counted, then the candidate who received the fewest votes is eliminated and each vote for that candidate is redirected to the voter’s second choice. This process would repeat until one candidate receives at least 50% of the vote.