Yep, it’s that blatant and that bad. If you took the worst election ideas from California—i.e., the jungle primary—and added the worst election idea from Alaska—ranked voting—and some outside money and boost the whole thing on steroids then you’d end up with the smelly mess of dog poop being put forward by a Democrat shell group called “Reclaim Idaho”.
Reclaim Idaho is actively collecting signatures for a ballot initiative that they wish to qualify. In neighboring Bonner County, the group is calling themselves, “Idaho Coalition for Open Primaries”.
Here is the first bullet point from the Reclaim Idaho website.
The initiative will end Idaho’s closed Republican primary and create a non-partisan primary system, open to all voters regardless of party affiliation. The top four candidates will advance to the general election.
Reclaim Idaho
The problem is that the Republicans in Idaho are too conservative, and the Dems don’t have the numbers to win in November so the only way they have a chance is to get a different outcome in the election. What is the purpose of the top four going to November except to divide the Republican voters and let more Democrats win. It’s simple math. In a top four, if two or three Republicans are on the ballot in November and only one Democrat then the likely winner in almost all cases will be the Democrat.
Jungle Primaries nullify a two-party system. If you want to know what killed California politics, it was the adoption of the top two vote getters go to the General Election. Republican candidates only appear on ballots in a handful of districts anywhere in the state. They have less than 1/3 of the Legislative seats and zero of the statewide offices. Having a top four system in Idaho will result in the same thing, one party rule and not by the GOP. Oh, California’s top two was funded by two billionaires: a RINO Republican and a Democrat.
Just to seal the deal, the top four will then be subjected to a ranked voting system. Ask Joe Miller how well ranked voting has worked in Alaska.
“Ranked-choice voting was sold as the way to make elections better reflect the will of the people,” Palin said in a statement. “As Alaska — and America — now sees, the exact opposite is true.”
Sarah Palin
Palin argues the voting system effectively disenfranchised 60% of Alaska voters …
Sarah Palin condemns ranked choice voting system following election
Compare Alaska’s system to the one proposed for Idaho.
Bullet Points two and three from Reclaim Idaho
In the general election, voters will have the freedom to pick their top candidate and also to rank additional candidates in order of preference.
To make sure the winner enjoys support from a broad coalition of voters and not just a narrow faction, there will be Instant Runoff Voting in the general election (also called “ranked choice voting”). Here’s how it works: The last-place candidate will be eliminated and each vote for that candidate will be transferred to the voter’s second choice. This process repeats until only two candidates remain, and the candidate with the most votes is declared the winner.
Reclaim Idaho
Oh, this idea was on the ballot in Nevada and adopted in 2022
Set to appear on the ballot for the upcoming midterm elections, the initiative — if successfully passed — would amend the constitution of Nevada by implementing a ranked-choice voting system for both state and federal primary and general elections, in which primaries “would be opened up to all voters regardless of political party.” Under such a system, voters would rank their top five preferred primary candidates, with the top five overall vote-getters advancing to the general contest.
In the general election, if a candidate fails to garner “an outright majority (more than 50 percent),” the candidate who has the “fewest first-preference votes would be eliminated, with their ‘votes’ redistributed based on the second preference of those individual ballots.” Such a process “would continue until the final two candidates, or when one candidate reached a majority.”
Ranked Choice voting is a nightmare and its on the ballot in Nevada
Ranked Choice is so bad even some Democrats have rejected it.
According to The Washington Informer, party leaders expressed concern that the implementation of RCV would kneecap voters’ ability to choose their preferred nominee in any given election and result in potential voter disenfranchisement. “We firmly believe that every voter, regardless of party affiliation or independent status, should have the right to freely choose their preferred candidate,” the party’s statement continues.
Ranked Choice voting is so bad for elections even DC Democrats are rejecting it
So there you have it, Democrats are on the record that Ranked Choice Voting—a.k.a rigged choice voting—results in disenfranchisement and kneecapping voters.
Please note that Ranked Choice Voting doesn’t appear in Democrat states, only those that the Democrats wish to flip to their column.