On March 30, the Idaho Senate passed SB 1198, the bill to begin asking registered voters to choose a party. The bill also provides for separate primary ballots for each party. Members of one party could only choose that party’s primary ballot. Each political party would decide for itself whether to let independents vote in its primary. The vote was 28-7.
Idaho has four qualified parties. They all nominate by primary. However, elections officials don’t print up primary ballots for parties that have no contested primaries, and generally the Libertarian Party and the Constitution Party don’t have contested primaries.
Sounds like military democracy. You can vote for me, or you can vote for me.
People who are offended that the Republican Party will probably ban independents from voting in its primary should consider qualifying a new party, such as the Moderate Party or the Independence Party.
Sounds good to me, Richard. If you don’t like any of the parties available, then register a new one.
Richard, I think we have ENOUGH third parties out there
SB 1198 permits each party to designate who may vote in its primary, including specific other parties, so it is more like Alaska, than the pre-2011 scheme in California.
Since Idaho permits a party to politically associate with individual members of selected other parties, why does there have to be a public record of that association? There is no reason. Since each primary party can designate the parties whose voters may participate in a primary, it is trivial to determine which primaries the voters of a particular party may vote, in and prepare a pick-a-party ballot for the registered voters of each party, as well as non-affiliated voters.
This would avoid the two-step process for mail voting. Idaho has all-mail election precincts where voters must vote by mail. In addition, overseas and military voters must vote by mail. The 45 days are to allow sending the ballot and getting it back. It is unlikely that there is time for two transits in that time. In 2008, 29.5% of voters voted by mail, and Idaho has been seeing dramatic increases in absentee voting. Absentee voters may be disproportionately elderly, so you may have a violation of the 26th Amendment,
But with a voluntary pick-a-party primary, all this goes away. In addition, election officials would have a lot less guesswork when printing ballots. If several parties permit non-affiliated voters to vote in their primary, they might all choose one party or the other. But with a pick-a-party ballot, all non-affiliated voters would get the same ballot.
Idaho has a threshold for qualifying write-in candidates for the general election, so by not conducting primaries for the Constitution and Libertarian parties, it is violating equal protection by not letting supporters of those parties nominate write-in candidates. There is no reason that the two parties could not be included in a pick-a-party ballot, and there is no reason to exclude them.
This would also eliminate the need for a transition period. Each party could decide for itself whether election day affiliation or re-affiliation is permitted. The Republicans could then be sure that those who voted in their primary had affiliated in advance.
But since participation in the primary is voluntary, why not go a step further and make it a voluntary blanket primary, like in Alaska? And then you can go ahead and put independent and candidates affiliated with non-qualified parties on the primary ballot. Add a modicum support like Washington had, and you have a mechanism for qualifying new parties.
Most rational States have ONE primary ballot for ALL candidates.
In the party hack closed primary regimes a voter can only vote for the primary candidates of one party.
Again – how about NO party hack primaries.
P.R. and App.V. — General [ONE] election ballot access via equal nominating petitions.
For party hack primary registration regimes the poll worker could stamp/mark the ballot regarding which party hack candidates votes would be counted.
e.g. Donkey party hack voter = Count only votes for Donkey candidates.
Richard, If there are other issues on the primary ballot other then candidates will Idaho have to print more ballots for independents, if they can’t participate in a party primary. Other states like Montana have tried this but the bill failed because the independents were left out of the primary. Do we want to force those folks to join a party just so they can vote in the primary? They could form there own party but they would have to find some candidates to run just to keep status. Maybe they could just take over the Democratic Party since they are not doing that well in Idaho, from what I hear.
# 8 Donkeys in ID like the Elephants in MA — difficult to find in both cases.
Again – many/most of the western States were created by the Elephants during and after the Civil War in an attempt to have permanent Elephant control of the U.S.A. gerrymander Senate — a giant party hack conspiracy.
Federal Case law in multiple federal district courts have determined that Political Parties are completely independent of the State. Each political party is entitled to determine who it’s candidates are by any means they determine acceptable to the party. The state of Idaho just lost a Federal Court case allowing the Idaho GOP to close it’s primary to registered republicans. If the legislature was wise they would completely deregulate the political parties in Idaho. They may lose another round of law suits unless they do.
LB I see what you are saying but some people would say way if political parties are supposed to be completely independent of the state (many states do regulate political parties) then why should my tax dollars support those parties with which I disagree. Political parties want the money but not the regulations.
#10 NOT quite.
See the Texas White Primary cases in SCOTUS and many later cases.
PUBLIC Electors are doing PUBLIC nominations for PUBLIC candidates for PUBLIC offices.
ALL Electors — as in top 2 primary areas.
SOME Electors — other areas
Both types – according to PUBLIC laws — subject to the U.S.A. Const.