BOISE, Idaho — Information is power, that statement in an election year has a lot of connotations with it. In simple terms, Idaho’s Secretary of State wants voters to have that power of information.
“It's the most common request we get from voters is just they want information to know about when an election is what they're going to be voting on. And I think most importantly, who they're going to be voting on,” said Idaho Secretary of State Phil McGrane.
Bright and early, right at 8 a.m., on a Friday, Secretary McGrane pitched the highly anticipated legislation that would create a voter guide.
“You hear from voters all the time who try to do their own research that using Google isn't always good enough because many of these candidates don't have websites, they don't have social media pages. So having a state issue voter guide really helps get that information out to the public,” McGrane said.
Trey Grayson is the former Secretary of State in Kentucky, he now does work with the Secure Elections Project as the Chair of their advisory board. He testified in favor of the legislation.
“It's a nonprofit that works mostly with Republican secretary of states and kind of red states across the country to try to improve election administration,” Grayson told KTVB Friday. “I'm excited about the potential for this for Idaho, and I'm looking forward to seeing if it is adopted. The positive impact.”
A big topic in the election world, state issued election guides. Grayson explains:
“Especially today when there's so much information out there, whether you can trust it or not, you know, can you trust the media? Do you trust your neighbor? Having an official government publication with information compiled by candidates themselves with some guidelines and rules in place to make sure that people are making accurate claims. It is a great way to provide some trusted information,” Grayson said.
Information published to the people has also changed mediums, a contributing factor to informing voters.
“We've seen a decline in local, daily and weekly newspapers. Those are the kind of publications that used to be able to cover this. But the business models don't work the way they used to. So we've seen this in some respects, this is actually more necessary today. And then it's also not enough just to go out and vote,“ Grayson said. “In an ideal world, you'd like to have some informed voters and this is a tool. So it is kind of part and parcel with administrators trying to encourage people to get out there, but also have the information so they can make their own choices.”
Secretary McGrane answered big questions in committee about the concept, like what information goes in the voter guide who makes sure it's fair and balanced?
“I think one of the big things is this would go out to every household in the state of Idaho. It's over 850,000 homes that would receive the voter guide. We've been able to figure out a way to keep the cost down in that distribution. And in terms of the information, it would be provided by the candidates. Every candidate would get 200 words and be able to provide basic information like where to go, find out more about them,” McGrane said.
Grayson said good news for Idaho, there are great models in other states to work off of.
“You don’t have to reinvent the wheel. You're going to go look at those conversations that are taking place. And actually, the committee the secretary talked about if somebody claims the endorsement, how you actually prove that endorsement, you have to have an affidavit and there's some deadlines and things like that. And so, those safeguards have been tried out and some of those kinks have been worked out in other states,” Grayson said.
McGrane’s concept proposes information fitting some requirements, but is really open to candidates putting out information they think is best for voters.
“We aren't going to be censoring the information. We will provide some guidance upfront because there are certain things like obscenities that we don't want to be included in the guide. But beyond that, it's really the candidates putting themselves forward. And I think it's important for voters to get to hear directly from the candidates. I have no doubts talking to other states, that there will be questions and concerns raised about some of the statements. But overall, it's still an improvement in terms of transparency,” McGrane said.
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