Ranked-choice voting scares Idaho voters as Prop 1 fails
IDAHO (KIFI) – Most Idaho voters did not want to change how primaries are conducted in Idaho and create ranked-choice voting. As of 11:00 p.m. Tuesday, 68 percent of voters said no to Proposition 1.
Proponents of the initiative argued that the Open Primaries Initiative would abolish Idaho's current closed primary system and establish a system where all candidates running for office appear on a single ballot. From there, the top four candidates who rank the best advance to the general election.
Hyrum Erikson of the Rexburg Chamber of Commerce told Local News 8, "In the general election, the ranked-choice voting allows voters to not just identify their one candidate, but then to identify their next preference and then their next preference after that. That means that you can't get elected by having a small sliver of the voting population love you to death while a majority hates you."
Idaho Republican National Committeeman Bryan Smith argued against Prop 1, saying, "In Alaska two years ago, in the congressional race, the person who actually won the plurality of votes got the most votes in the first round of voting saw Sarah Palin. And the person who came in last was the Democrat. By the time they got done with ranked-choice voting, 15,000 ballots were trashed. The Democrat won, and Sarah Palin lost."
