BOISE, Idaho — The open primaries initiative is one step closer to appearing on your ballot this November.
Idahoans for Open Primaries, the group behind the initiative, delivered signatures to the Secretary of State's Office on Tuesday. County clerks across the Gem State have already verified signatures for the individual counties. However, the Secretary of State's Office will do a final verification before the initiative officially qualifies for the ballot.
"For years now, all across the state we've been hearing a lot of frustration about the closed primary system," Idahoans for Open Primaries spokesperson Luke Mayville said. "It feels amazing to finally be giving the people of Idaho a chance to do something about it."
Boxes of signatures lined the steps of the Statehouse, filled with about 97,000 signatures gathered across every county in the state from the grassroots group.
The signature submission is one of the final steps to put the open primaries initiative up to voters in November.
"This is a system that blocks 270,000 independent voters from participating in the most important elections. We're finally giving voters a chance to change that," Mayville said.
The initiative proposes a non-partisan primary election, where the top four vote-getters - regardless of party - would advance to the general election.
"What we're hearing all across the state is that in a taxpayer-funded election, no citizen should ever be denied a voice," Mayville said.
The general election would have instant runoff voting, often referred to as ranked-choice voting. Voters would choose 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.
The signature drop-off drew a protest of about a dozen people. Protestors told KTVB they do not support ranked choice voting, voicing concerns over its cost, potential to cause confusion, and concerns over election security.
If the open primaries initiative qualifies for the November 24 ballot, it would require a simple majority to pass.
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