Open primaries would enable all voters

There’s an old adage that a lie can get ‘round the world before the truth gets its boots on.

As I explain to everyone who will listen, there are over 1,000 volunteers like myself working in all areas of Idaho to get signatures of registered voters on the Citizen’s Petition for Open Primaries. 

Each of us, and many others throughout Idaho, donate to the campaign, in mostly $5 and $10 amounts. If this citizen initiative qualifies for the November 2024 ballot and passes, every voter will choose candidates who best represent them, regardless of the voter’s and candidates’ parties. 

We need 100,000 signatures in Idaho to get the initiative on the ballot. So, a week ago I took a petition with me when my husband and I were buying winter supplies at ProX. As we waited in line, a young lady signed, but when I asked a man behind us if he had heard of open primaries, someone at least 10 years younger than me butted in.

This second man said, “That’s where I pick 1, 2, 3, 4 and my vote goes to a liberal.” I told him that the ranked-choice portion is optional and only in the general election. But as I told him that no political party would be favored in open primaries, he again cut me off. “I know you’re getting paid for every signature,” he said on his way out the door. Not surprisingly, when I turned back to the first man, he declined.

My husband was loading the car, but he politely would have put them straight on the many hundreds of hours I’ve spent collecting signatures and the hundreds of dollars we have donated to the Open Primaries Initiative. Man to man, he would have said that we just want to help all voters in Idaho be part of the candidate selection process.

But some voters refuse to listen to, or read, truthful information and they spread the lies they hear in as many places as they can. Still, I find it hard not to waste my time and energy on them.

CLARICE M. McKENNEY

Bonners Ferry