Two plans go against GOP closed primary rule

Excerpt from the Times-News (March 14, 2008):

By JOHN MILLER

BOISE, Idaho - There’s another effort afoot to resolve Idaho’s ongoing political scuffle over restricting the state’s Republican primary elections to GOP-registered voters.

Secretary of State Ben Ysursa introduced a plan Friday in the Senate State Affairs Committee that would record what ballot a voter choses in the state’s official poll book, if a political party demands it.

Keith Allred, who directs the Idaho good-government group The Common Interest, backed a separate plan to let Republicans vote in Republican primaries, Democrats vote in theirs and still give unregistered independents the choice of either ballot. If either party is unhappy with the plan, Allred’s proposal allows them to hold their own candidate nominating process at their own expense.

The proposals follows a federal lawsuit last year by conservative Republicans who want to close Idaho’s primaries, arguing that crossover voters were skewing results toward more moderate candidates. Rod Beck, who led the legal challenge that was thrown out of U.S. District Court in November, panned both Ysursa’s and Allred’s plans, saying if either were passed, members of the Republican Party would sue again.

“What our party rules specifically say is only those registered in the Republican Party can vote in a Republican primary,” Beck said. “Any system that allows anybody but a publicly registered Republican to vote in a Republican primary is a contravention of Republican Party rules.”

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