Open Primaries Coalition Files Lawsuit Against AG Labrador’s Ballot Titles

Boise – Supporters of a ballot initiative to make Idaho primary elections open to all voters have filed a lawsuit asking the Idaho Supreme Court to repeal and replace misleading ballot titles issued by Attorney General Raúl Labrador.

The Idaho Attorney General is required by law to provide fair and accurate ballot titles for every citizens’ initiative. Ballot titles are official statements that appear on the ballot and that summarize the purpose of a ballot measure.

In a brief submitted to the court, attorneys for the coalition characterize Attorney General Labrador’s ballot titles as a dereliction of duty:

“In dereliction of his official duties, the Attorney General has prepared ballot titles that do not conform to the law. He has instead drafted titles that express his strong bias against the Initiative and his intention to use his power to defeat it.”

The same day the Open Primaries Initiative was filed in early May, Attorney General Labrador issued a public statement on Twitter calling for the defeat of the initiative. Labrador later issued a statement announcing his intention—if the signature drive for the initiative is successful—to file suit against the measure and remove it from the ballot.

The lawsuit, Idahoans for Open Primaries v. Raúl Labrador, asks the court to reject AG Labrador’s titles and instead to certify accurate, unbiased titles that meet the requirements of Idaho law.

The lawsuit also asks the court to expedite its decision and to extend the signature-collection deadline to make up for lost time.

Former Attorney General Jim Jones, who supports the Open Primaries Initiative, says AG Labrador is deliberately attempting to confuse and mislead voters.

“The titles that Mr. Labrador proposed for the Open Primaries Initiative violate Idaho law because they are deceptive and designed to create prejudice against the measure,” Jones says. “The Attorney General is setting the stage for a campaign of confusion and deception against the initiative.”

Supporters of the Open Primaries Initiative have identified several false and misleading statements in the AG’s ballot titles, including:

• The AG insinuates that the initiative includes more than one subject and therefore violates the single-subject rule. But the single-subject rule does not mean an initiative cannot include multiple policy changes; it only means that all policy changes must fall under one common subject. The Open Primaries Initiative makes changes to both primary elections and general elections, but both changes clearly fall under the single subject of elections.

• The AG falsely claims that the initiative requires voters to rank more than one candidate— including candidates they don’t support. The AG’s title states that “ranked-choice voting would require voting for each candidate on the ballot in order of preference.” Section 25 of the Open Primaries Initiative contradicts this claim in plain language: “Voters are not required to rank every candidate. A ballot will be tabulated...regardless of how many candidates the voter has ranked.” The text of the initiative makes clear that voters would be allowed to rank multiple candidates, but not required to do so.

• The AG repeats the misconception that multiple rankings in instant runoff elections equate to multiple votes, and the AG makes the false claim that the Open Primaries Initiative requires voters to cast multiple votes in a single election. This claim is explicitly contradicted in Section 4 of the initiative: “each ballot counts as a single vote for its highest-ranked active candidate.” The text of the initiative makes clear that each person casts only one vote. Voters may rank multiple candidates, but multiple rankings do not equate to multiple votes.

• Idaho code requires that words used in the title must be “words by which the measure is commonly referred too or spoken of” (Idaho Code 34-1809). But the opening sentence of the AG’s titles describe the measure as proposing a “nonparty blanket primary”—an obscure term that is almost entirely absent from common usage. To date, the term has not been commonly used by either proponents or opponents of the Open Primaries Initiative in Idaho. Furthermore, the term “blanket primary” is almost entirely absent from the discussion of similar reforms and proposals in Alaska, Nevada, and other states.

Idaho Code 34-1809 states the following: “In making the ballot title, the attorney general shall, to the best of his ability, give a true and impartial statement of the purpose of the measure and in such language that the ballot title shall not be intentionally an argument or likely to create prejudice either for or against the measure.”

The Idahoans for Open Primaries coalition plans to launch its signature drive as soon as the court issues its ruling.

Background: In the weeks since the initiative was filed, over 800 Idahoans from 72 different towns have signed up to volunteer with the Idahoans for Open Primaries coalition.

Prominent spokespeople for the coalition include Bruce Newcomb, who served as Republican Speaker of the House from 1998 to 2006; and Karole Honas, who served for 30 years as the nightly news anchor for KIFI Local News 8 in Eastern Idaho.

The coalition is critical of Idaho’s closed primary elections, which block independent voters from participating in elections unless they join a political party. The Open Primaries Initiative, which the group intends to place on the November 2024 ballot, would create a non-partisan primary system that is open to all voters regardless of party affiliation.

Similar to an initiative recently passed in Alaska, the Open Primaries Initiative would create a “top four” primary election. 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 instant runoff voting, which gives voters the freedom to pick their top candidate and then to rank additional candidates in order of preference.

Instant runoff voting ensures that the winner enjoys support from a broad coalition of voters and not just a narrow faction. After the first choices of all ballots are counted, the candidate receiving the fewest votes is eliminated. All votes for the eliminated candidate are counted toward the voter’s next choice. This process repeats until only two candidates remain and the candidate receiving the highest number of votes wins.

Supporters say the instant runoff process gives every voter a voice. Even if a voter’s first choice is eliminated, the voter’s remaining choices still count.

Utah recently held instant runoff elections in 21 cities. In a survey conducted after the elections, over 80% of the Utah voters who participated said the election system was easy to understand. A 2022 Alaska survey found that 85% of Alaska voters viewed the instant runoff process as “simple.”

There are 63 localities in the United States that conduct instant runoff elections. Two states (Maine and Alaska) hold statewide instant runoff elections, and 6 states (Mississippi, Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, South Carolina, and Georgia) use instant runoff voting for military and overseas voters.

In order to qualify for the November 2024 ballot, the campaign must collect valid signatures from 6% of all Idaho voters who were registered at the last general election, which is 62,895 signatures statewide. The campaign must also collect signatures from 6% of registered voters in each of 18 legislative districts. The campaign must meet these signature requirements by May 1st, 2024.

###