Otter says he favors open primary for Idaho elections

BOISE — Former Gov. Butch Otter has joined a growing list of former Republican officials who have endorsed the proposal to open primary elections up to all voters regardless of party affiliation and implement ranked-choice voting; current leadership of the Idaho GOP opposes the proposal.

Otter and his wife Lori Otter made the announcement of their support at a news conference Wednesday with former Attorney General Jim Jones at the Capitol.

“I’m proud to be part of this,” Otter said. “... a lot of the folks that Jim has on that list (of supporters), you’ll see before their name, ‘former’ — well, they were former people that served when politics was cordial, when the campaigns were not divisive like they are now. I want to bring that all back to Idaho. Idaho deserves better.”

Under the proposed primary system, all candidates participate in the same primary election and the top four candidates advance to the general election. Voters then choose the winner in a general election with ranked-choice voting, which gives voters the ability to pick their top candidate and then to rank additional candidates in order of preference.

After the first choices of all ballots are counted, the candidate with the fewest votes would be eliminated. Votes for the eliminated candidate would be counted toward the voters’ next choice — this process repeats until two candidates remain and the one with the most votes would win.

Otter said opening the election up will help bring back civility to political discourse in Idaho.

“What I see today is a lot of people running for office, unfortunately most of them on our side, on the Republican side, that haven’t got the skill to convince people to be on their side,” Otter said. “So the only thing they can do is tear them down personally.”

Lori Otter, who is a real estate agent, CEO of Idaho Women in Leadership and former educator, said the party needs to appeal to everyone and go back to being a “big tent.”

She strongly condemned the Idaho GOP’s recent decision to remove voting powers on party matters from the leaders of the Idaho Republican Women’s Federation, Idaho Young Republicans and College Young Republicans. This change was made earlier this summer, the Idaho Capital Sun reported.

“Shame on the Republican Party for taking that voice away at the Republican Party Central Committee. … Shame on (Idaho GOP Chairperson) Dorothy Moon,” Lori Otter said. “They need to know that people are paying attention, and this primary is so important, so important to bring Idaho and that big tent back together.”

Former Rep. Scott Syme, who is an Army veteran, joined the Otters to share the endorsement of a recently formed group called Veterans for Idaho Voters. He said that many veterans are either unaffiliated or registered as independents, so the current Republican closed primary shuts them out of the process.

Jones also read a statement from former Speaker of the House Bruce Newcomb, who is one of the original supporters of the initiative.

Newcomb wrote that the initiative is the only way he knows of to “break the extremists’ stranglehold on the Republican Party.”

“It will give reasonable, pragmatic Republicans the means to take back their party,” he said. “All voters will be able to participate in primary elections and all office-seekers will have to appeal to a broad range of voters, instead of just a narrow, extreme base.”

The list of Republicans includes 116 people, many of whom are former officials such as former Lt. Gov. Jack Riggs, former state Superintendent of Public Instruction Jerry Evans, and former Ada County sheriffs Gary Raney and Vaughn Killeen.

The Idaho GOP has been critical of the proposal, and a spokesperson for the party previously said, “Idaho Democrats, and their supporters like Bruce Newcomb, are willing to support what even California Governors Jerry Brown and Gavin Newsom called an idiotic idea: endorse an unfair and complex voting system that eliminates one man, one vote.”

Supporters of the initiative are in the process of collecting signatures in order for it to be eligible for the November 2024 ballot. This process was delayed by court proceedings, after the group challenged the ballot titles assigned by Idaho Attorney General Raúl Labrador.

The state Supreme Court ordered Labrador’s office to submit new ballot titles but denied the group’s request to extend its deadline for gathering signatures.

Guido covers Idaho politics for the Lewiston Tribune, Moscow-Pullman Daily News and Idaho Press of Nampa. She may be contacted at lguido@idahopress.com and can be found on Twitter @EyeOnBoiseGuido.