Investigation underway in political sign vandalism

The Idaho GOP is offering a $5,000 reward for the arrest and conviction of those involved in vandalizing the party’s campaign signs opposing the “Open Primaries” initiative.

The party said in a news release this week that more than a dozen signs had been damaged in the area around Meridian and Eagle and included photos of two signs — one appeared to have a swastika painted over it and the other changed the words to support the ballot measure. The signs were paid for by the state Republican Central Committee.

Eagle police received a report of multiple vandalized signs over the weekend in the area near Idaho Highway 44, an Ada County Sheriff’s Office spokesperson told the Idaho Press. The incident is under investigation, she said. Meridian police received no reports, the department said.

“I’m dismayed to see this happen in Idaho,” GOP Chairperson Dorothy Moon said in the release. “These signs were placed by individual citizens who wanted to warn their communities about the dangers of Ranked Choice Voting, so to see them defaced like this is an outrage.”

The group running the initiative, Idahoans for Open Primaries, condemned the vandalism in an emailed statement.

“We strongly denounce vandalism. Defacing property in the public right of way — including campaign signage — is unfortunately something that happens every election season. It is truly shameful,” a spokesperson wrote in an email to the Idaho Press.

Proposition 1, also known as the “Open Primaries” initiative, would create a nonpartisan, top-four primary, in which the four candidates with the most votes all advance to the general election. In the general election, voters would be able to rank their candidates in order of preference in a process known as instant runoff or ranked-choice voting. It will be on ballots statewide this November and requires a simple majority to pass.

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

Each voter still only has one vote that counts, but there are different rounds of counting until the winner has a majority of votes — not just a plurality.

Supporters say it will ensure candidates who win are appealing to a more broad spectrum of voters, not just an active few, and this would act as a counter to more extremist candidates.

Those who oppose it, including Moon and other leaders in the Idaho GOP, say the process is confusing to voters and that the political parties should be able to continue running their own closed primary contests.

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.