The Idaho legislature convenes on January 10. According to this story, a bill will be introduced that lets parties block adherents of other parties from voting in that party’s primary. However, it will not block independent voters from voting in any party’s primary.
The story is not very detailed, but seems to suggest that the bill will set up a system somewhat like Illinois’ system, in which the voter registration form would still not ask for a choice of party. Instead, a record would be made of which party’s primary a voter chose. Then, presumably, in the next primary, the voter would be required to choose the same primary that he or she had chosen last time, unless in the interim that voter had filed some sort of paper showing a change of party allegiance.
Idaho currently has a “secret open primary”, in which a voter decides which party’s primary to vote in, in the privacy of the voting booth.
Public Electors in Public primaries — totally subject to public LAWS.
Sorry – each faction of party folks is NOT an independent empire from outer space.
Just a note of clarification: In Illinois, a voter is not required to choose the same ballot as they chose last time. Voters are free to choose whatever primary ballot they want at any primary, but yes, the choice is recorded.
If they don’t ask people to state their party affiliation, but use their ballot choice to suppose their party affiliation, I wonder how they are going to formally distinguish independents from voters who wish to align with a party. Say I ask for a GOP ballot. How do they know I’m really a Republican and not an independent who may vote for another party next time? It seems Idaho is reducing the definition of an independent to “someone who never voted in a primary before”.
Good points, #2. I guess we will just have to wait until we see the bill’s language.
Any blood oaths to obey the party line required by the top party hacks in each party ???
See the personal oaths to Hitler in Germany in the 1930s.