IDAHO, USA — Idahoans could likely have another big decision during election day this November, with the open primaries initiative in its final push to appear on the ballot.
Idahoans for Open Primaries is a statewide coalition trying to make Idaho's elections open and non-partisan. The group has been collecting tens of thousands of signatures to get the open primaries initiative to appear on the November ballot.
"We all want to bring an end to the closed primary, which has just shut far too many people out of the political process," Idahoans for Open Primaries spokesperson Luke Mayville said.
The group launched the initiative in August, and have a deadline on May 1st to submit the signatures they've gathered. Over the weekend, they had a final, statewide push to try and make sure they have enough signatures.
"We're finding that voters are really fed up with an election system where so many people are being excluded," Mayville said. "Where independent voters are blocked from voting in the most important primary elections, and where when you show up to vote in a general election - you only have two choices."
The initiative proposes a non-partisan primary election, where the top four vote-getters, regardless of party, would advance to the general election.
The general election would have instant runoff voting, often called ranked-choice voting. Voters would chose their top candidate, and rank the remaining candidates in order of preference.
If no candidate wins with more than 50% of the vote after the first-choice rankings are counted, then the last-place candidate would be eliminated, and each vote for that candidate would go to the voter's second choice. That process would repeat until one candidate gets at least 50% of the vote, and is declared the winner.
"That's really important because a lot of people right now feel like when they vote, they're throwing their vote away - and they don't really feel like they have a real voice," Mayville said. "This ranked-choice voting process means that every voter is far more likely to have a real impact on the election."
Next, the coalition will turn in their collected signatures into the counties and secretary of state to have the signatures verified.
If the initiative makes it to the November election, it would require a simple majority to pass.
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