On Thursday, Idaho Freedom Foundation and Idaho Freedom Action President Ronald M. Nate released the following statement on the certification of the ranked choice voting and open primaries ballot initiative voters will consider at the General Election: 

“Liberals are on a losing streak in Idaho. They know they cannot sell their broken ideas and leftist candidates to Idaho voters, so they are planning to rig elections to gain a foothold in our state. Make no mistake, ranked choice voting would erase the conservative gains voters have made in the last few election cycles, and put Idaho on the fast track to becoming the next Colorado or California. They won’t even be honest about rank choice voting; they claim it’s about ‘open primaries,’ but that’s a flat-out lie.”

Nate continued, “The so-called ‘open primaries’ initiative is better described as ‘rigged choice voting’ through a jungle-primary, and it disenfranchises voters who stand on principles and reject undeserving and dishonest candidates.”

“Besides that, ranked choice voting is confusing to voters, costly to implement, ripe for corruption, and silences large swathes of voters. Should this system be implemented, Idaho’s rural counties would be forced to spend vast sums of taxpayer money to upgrade voting equipment, and the state would have to invest millions to educate voters on the new voting procedures. It’s no wonder Alaskans who approved ranked choice voting in 2022 are rushing to repeal it later this year. It’s an awful and unfair voting system.” 

He concluded, “Left-wing special interest groups are champing at the bit to gain traction in Idaho, and this is the first step of their plan. Confidence in elections sits at a historic low, and implementation of ranked choice voting would drive it much lower. The system is nearly impossible to audit, delivers results in weeks or months, not hours after polls close, and doesn’t count every Idahoan’s vote. IFF and IFA urge voters to do their homework in the coming months to understand how bad ranked choice voting really is.” 

Idaho Freedom Foundation, the state’s leading conservative think tank, and Idaho Freedom Action, a grassroots organization committed to holding lawmakers accountable and educating voters, are providing resources voters can use to educate themselves on ranked choice voting’s myriad problems. 

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