The Case Against Proposition 1: Debunking the Debunkers

On October 11th, 2024 Ryan Urie sought to "debunk misinformation" about Idaho's Proposition 1. Instead he ended up just making a series of unfounded claims, asserting their veracity without providing reasoned arguments or evidence.

What I'd like to do here is comb through Ryan's assertions point-by-point, and demonstrate how baseless they are.

Opponents contend that ranked-choice voting (RCV) will be too complicated for voters, who are apparently too stupid to arrange four items in order of preference.

It's simply a fact that ranked-choice voting is more complex than our existing system.

In our existing system you cast exactly one vote for each seat. The person who gets the most votes wins. Simple.

With ranked-choice voting you have to mark four "preferences." That literally makes it four times as complex. Can most voters figure that out? Sure. Will many accidentally fill in two choices for their first preference, you betcha. This will lead to complexity at the ballot box. In the best case scenario the entire ballot has to be spoiled and filled in again. And in the worst case scenario the ballot will be exhausted.

Actually, ranked-choice voting has been around since the 1800s and has been used successfully in Maine, Alaska and numerous American cities.

If ranked-choice voting has been around for so long, why isn't it widely used? The answer is that in virtually every place where it has been tried it has proved to be a phenomenal failure. In fact, Alaska has grown so frustrated and disenfranchised by RCV that it has now arrived on a ballot initiative to be overturned this year.

The Latah County Republican Party has hosted a No on Prop 1 table at the Moscow Farmer's market and a number of folks stopped by who moved here from Alaska. Every single person familiar with the RCV initiative there hated it and was adamantly opposed to Prop 1.

Prop 1...shuts hundreds of thousands of voters out of meaningful participation in Idaho’s elections.

Today, if you're a registered independent in Idaho you can literally participate in any party primary you want. The claim that independents are shut out is a blatant lie. The Republican party allows registered Republicans and independents to participate in our primary provided they change their affiliation. And while you can fill out a voter registration form on the same day and change back to an independent the day after the election I don't think this can be done with integrity.

If you participate in a party's primary you should do so because you believe in the values embodied by that party. And on this point the Democrats actually align with Republicans - as demonstrated in their requirement to sign a "pledge form" in order to participate in the Presidential Caucus.

The primary is an opportunity for members of political parties to choose their best candidate to put forward in the general election. If Democrats want to start winning they should put forward better candidates instead of rewriting election laws to help them cheat bad candidates into office.

For the record, RCV maintains the principle of one-person-one-vote, provides results as quickly as other voting methods, only involves a reasonable one-time cost to implement, and uses a simple algorithm that allows results to be easily audited, even by a hand-count.

RCV allows those who've cast their ballot for a candidate who loses to "re-cast" their vote. If you were playing rock-paper-scissors with somebody and the loser was allowed to "re-cast" their initial choice, the loser would always win. And quickly you'd decide this game isn't fair and would stop playing. That's ranked-choice voting. It's a system that favors candidates who receive fewer votes, disenfranchising the majority of voters.

Furthermore, while conventional voting provides results in 24 hours, RCV will take up to a week to determine the results. In his October 5th piece, Bob Hassoldt brought clarity to this issue: "Under the current system, county clerks can easily tabulate and submit the election results to the secretary of state’s office on election night. The results are quickly added together and the multiple county district winners are known within a few minutes. Ranked choice voting would require that the raw election data from each county be submitted to the secretary of state’s office, which would then run the multiple rounds necessary to determine the election winners...ranked choice voting will change knowing the final results from a single night to a week."

Idaho Secretary of State Phil McGrane reported that implementing the changes required by proposition one wouldn't only make the results take longer to report, but would cost Idaho taxpayers between $25-$40 million dollars. A far cry from "reasonable."

RCV doesn’t have any significant impact on voter turnout and never involves throwing out ballots.

Secure Idaho Elections lists a number of examples that clearly demonstrate RCV leads to lower voter turnout. For example, "A study of San Francisco elections from 1995 to 2011 demonstrated a strong relationship between a decline in voter turnout and the adoption of RCV."

Also, if voters conscientiously decide to not rank every preference in RCV then they quite literally run the risk of having their ballot exhausted. This means that their vote will not be considered in the final tally if their first choice candidate is ultimately eliminated. Ryan doesn't even provide an argument explaining his position here. He simply asserts something that is plainly false in an effort to obfuscate the facts.

Some opponents have started using the slogan “Don’t Californicate Idaho” in their anti-Prop 1 messaging. However California doesn’t even use RCV, and while they do have an open primary system, Idaho did too until 2011.

California doesn't use RCV state-wide, but it is used in several major cities including San Francisco, Oakland, and Berkeley. Also, they don't have an "open primary" system. California uses a "top-two" blanket primary, sometimes called a "jungle" primary. Proposition 1 would implement a "top-four" blanket primary here in Idaho.

I noticed that Ryan failed to speak much about the "open primaries" part of Proposition 1. I suspect it's because he knows calling it an "open primary initiative" is no longer tenable. Voters are wise to the scam now: Proposition 1 does not implement open primaries.

In an open primary you can show up to the polls and ask for any party's ballot and participate without changing your affiliation. But you only get one party's ballot. And while it's true that Idaho had open primaries prior to 2011, it's important to note that Idaho switched to a closed primary system after a U.S. District Court determined that open primaries violated the First Amendment right of association by allowing non-affiliated voters to influence party elections.

Proposition one is worse. It would abolish party primaries entirely, placing all candidates on a single ballot. To see how this can go off the rails just take a look at this 2022 Jungle Primary Sample Ballot from Alaska where 48 candidates ran in one race.

Furthermore, Proposition 1 would allow candidates to list any party association without needing to be affiliated with that party. The plan here is obvious: run extreme, progressive Democrat candidates with an "R" next to their name in an effort to steal votes in a majority Republican state.

It's worth asking why this initiative has even been proposed. What’s so bad about the voting system we have? In short, our current system is organized to ensure that only the most extreme Republicans have any hope of winning an election in Idaho.

Our current, traditional election system ensures that the candidate who receives the most votes wins. This is fair. But apparently not fair enough for Democrats.

It's a real wonder why these "open primary" ambassadors for freedom and inclusivity aren't starting in staunchly blue states like Connecticut and Illinois. Only it's no real wonder. We know why: because Democrats win elections there.

Cody Barr is Republican Precinct Committeeman for Moscow 3 and is the Second Vice-Chair of the Latah County Republicans. He lives in Moscow with his wife and four children. You can reach out to him via email at cody.barr@gmail.com.