BOISE, Idaho (AP) — The Idaho Supreme Court has dismissed a lawsuit brought by the state’s attorney general over a ballot initiative that aims to open Idaho’s closed primary elections and create a ranked-choice voting system.
The high court did not rule on the merits of Idaho Attorney General Raúl Labrador’s arguments against the Idahoans for Open Primaries Initiative, but said Labrador should have first filed his case in a lower court instead of going directly to the state’s highest judicial panel.
Labrador filed the challenge last month, contending that organizers misled voters by using the term “open primaries” rather than “top-four primary” when collecting signatures. He also said the initiative violated the Idaho Constitution’s prohibition against having more than one issue on a single ballot initiative.
Idaho currently has a partisan primary system, with each political party setting its own rules for who may participate. Only registered Republicans are allowed to vote in the Republican primary, and voters who are unaffiliated or registered with the Democratic Party can vote in the Democratic primary.
The initiative would replace that system with a primary where all candidates seeking election would appear on one ballot. The top four vote-earners would advance to the general election. In the general election, voters would rank candidates by preference, and then voting would be tallied in rounds with the candidate receiving the least number of votes eliminated. If a voter’s top choice is eliminated, their second choice would get the vote in the next round. The process would repeat until someone wins a majority of votes.
Allegations of fraud in the initiative process are serious, Justice Robyn Brody wrote for the unanimous court in the Tuesday ruling, but she said those allegations first must be brought to a district court.
