Section 40
Pandora's Box in Prop 1
Amongst the 18 pages of Proposition 1 on the November ballot lies a short paragraph that opens the door to all kinds of changes to Idaho statute.
In essence, anything in statute that the initiative writers did not think of that conflicts with the initiative could be null and void. Some possible examples:
Hand counting of ballots: Current statute calls for a hand count of 5% of ballots in any recount, but hand counting ranked choice voting ballots is much more difficult than our current plurality elections, particularly if the recount covers multiple counties. This also applies to the random post-election audits that the Secretary of State now conducts. Those recounts are specified by statute to be done via hand counting. The removal of any hand counting will cause a loss of transparency and confidence in our elections.
Internet connectivity: A law was passed last session that prohibits tabulation machines from being connected to the internet. County totals are currently sent to the Secretary of State via the internet, but the Secretary of State does not do any further tabulation with machines. However, if Prop1 passes and the Secretary of State is required to run the tabulation of a ranked choice voting run-off, this could violate the statute.
Machine certification: The Secretary of State indicated in his letter to the Legislative Council that no voting machines currently deployed in Idaho can tabulate a Ranked Choice Voting ballot, which is a key part of Proposition 1. Current statute prohibits non-certified machines from being used in our elections. Would Section 40 provide an ‘out’ and eliminate the certification requirement?
Who is the Idaho Code Commission?
Per Section 40, the task of sorting out any conflict falls upon the Idaho Code Commission. Who are they? They are a product of Idaho Statute - Title 73, Chapter 2. They are a group of three, all members of the Idaho State Bar. They serve a six year term and replacements are appointed by the governor from a list of up to three candidates provided by the State Bar. Given the leftward tilt of the legal profession in general and of our Idaho courts, does that give you comfort that all of the statute adjustments will be objective?
Half-Baked Alaska
Proposition 1 was based on the Alaska model, however, Alaska runs their elections quite differently than Idaho. For example, Alaska does not have county government whereas in Idaho, it is the counties that run our elections.
You’d think perhaps the proponents of Proposition 1 might have done some due diligence in identifying areas of glaring discrepancy with existing statute and operations, but you would be wrong. In a recent documentary, it was revealed by our Secretary of State that he, our top elections official, was never consulted.
The fiscal impact statement in the proposition also failed any reasonable measure of due diligence. Glaring misses like the machine certification and voter education were covered in the SoS letter. They were also vague on identifying which of the 17 counties would be required to purchase election management software. Five counties use Hart, over 30 use ES&S and a few do not even use machines. So where did they pull the 17 county number from?
This whole effort seems ‘half baked’. Unfortunately, polling shows significant support. But are these proponents really believing that Prop 1 will solve some perceived problem or do they just want to blow it all up because they are losing elections?