Why did Idaho’s Prop 1 on open primaries, ranked choice voting fail so badly? | Opinion
Idaho’s Proposition 1 failed badly, more than two-to-one, with nearly 70% of voters against it.
Even though I suspected it would fail, I didn’t think it would fail that badly.
So why was it so resounding?
First, it fell along party lines. The Idaho Republican Party came out strongly against it, from GOP chairwoman Dorothy Moon to Gov. Brad Little and House Speaker Mike Moyle, and if you look at the number of votes for Donald Trump compared with the number of votes against Prop 1, it closely lines up.
In fact, more people voted against Proposition 1 (609,521) than those who voted for Trump (596,765).
Second, reasonable people had legitimate concerns, particularly with ranked choice voting. Ranked choice voting would have asked voters to rank up to four candidates in each race they’re voting in, requiring them to do more research. Calculation of votes would have been much more complex than simply declaring a winner based on who received the most votes. Votes would have been distributed to second-choice and third-choice candidates.
Third, it would have been a dramatic change to our elections, and people have a tendency to be wary of big changes. Ranked choice voting has its flaws, but no system is perfect, and our current system has its own flaws. But the devil you know is better than the devil you don’t.
Still, I think ranked choice’s benefits outweighed its flaws, and the current system’s flaws are worse than the flaws of ranked choice voting. But that’s a tough sell.
Fourth, there was just a lot of misinformation out there about it. The dramatic change in our election system was confusing enough for people to get their heads around, but add on top of that the lies that it violates one person, one vote and that a “computer algorithm” decides the winner, and it was easy for voters to just say, “no way.”
Finally, it just wasn’t its night. Idaho wasn’t alone Tuesday in rejecting ranked choice voting and changes to the election system.
According to the Mountain States Policy Center, here’s a rundown of the results of election reforms across the country:
- Alaska: 51% of voters are supporting the repeal of its new RCV process (narrowly adopted in 2020).
- Oregon: 60% of voters are rejecting Measure 117 to require RCV.
- Colorado: 55% of voters are rejecting Prop 131 to require a Top 4 primary, similar to Idaho’s top four vote-getters advancing to the general election, and RCV.
- Nevada: 54% of voters are rejecting Measure 3 to require a Top 5 and RCV.
- Missouri: 68% of voters are approving a constitutional amendment to prohibit Ranked Choice Voting.
- Washington, D.C.: The only place to support RCV during the 2024 election was the city of Washington, D.C., for local elections (72% support for I-83).
Voters across the country also are rejecting proposals to replace partisan primaries with open primaries, according to Mountain States Policy Center:
- Arizona: 58% are rejecting Prop 140 to require open primaries.
- South Dakota: 66% are rejecting a constitutional amendment to require a Top 2 open primary.
- Montana: 52% are rejecting a constitutional amendment to require a Top 4 open primary. In addition, 61% of Montana voters are rejecting a constitutional amendment to require 50% support to win an election (using possible RCV or runoff election).
Unfortunately, the problem remains in Idaho with the closed Republican primary, which leads to extremist candidates winning with a small minority of voters in the low-turnout primary and then cruising to victory in the general election, where they face little or no challenge in a political culture that’s increasingly partisan.
As has been speculated, it likely would have been better to put just open primaries on the ballot without the ranked choice voting. Would it have passed without ranked choice voting? Perhaps, but we’ll never know.
If you think Idaho’s legislators are going to fix the closed primary system, don’t hold your breath.
Will we see the group Idahoans for Open Primaries come back again with another ballot measure, but this time focused just on open primaries?
Time will tell.
This story was originally published November 6, 2024 at 10:49 AM.
