By Melissa Davlin, Idaho Reports

Voters who were able to attend Saturday’s Idaho Republican Presidential Caucus in District 17 in Boise likely reported a great experience. The lines moved quickly, attendees were friendly and excited, and volunteer tabulators experienced no issues when counting the 600 ballots.

But it was a different story for those who missed the caucus, whether because of confusing information from the Idaho Republican Party, difficult weather, or work schedules.

Former President Donald Trump easily won the Idaho presidential caucus and will receive all of Idaho’s 32 delegates in the Republican presidential nominating process. While the party was still tabulating final results Saturday night, Idaho Reports heard both success stories and challenges from voters statewide.

Caucus rules stated only registered Republicans and their minor children could attend, with no exception for news media. But reporters who are registered Republicans were able to attend at their assigned caucus sites.

Borah High School served as the caucus site for Legislative District 17 Republicans. At 11:45 a.m. MT, 15 minutes before the doors opened, there was already a line that stretched into the parking lot. A volunteer told voters to have their identification ready. The line grew as the doors opened at noon, despite a biting wind. When the doors opened at noon MT, the line moved quickly and this reporter, who started at least 200 people back in the line, was inside within 15 minutes.

Inside the school, volunteers directed voters to their precincts, where they showed their IDs to match with their names and addresses. A precinct worker stamped their hands to show they’d been checked in, then gave them a small paper ballot with the candidates’ names next to bubbles to fill in. On the tables were campaign materials opposing ranked choice voting.

From there, voters joined a line to enter the gym, where the caucus was held. Another volunteer checked us into the gym and stamped their hands again.

In the gym, about 200 voters sat in the bleachers, awaiting instructions. Benjamin Chavitz, who emceed the District 17 caucus, was showing attendees that the makeshift ballot box, made from a black and yellow storage tote, was empty. Volunteers soon added zip ties to the tote’s lid. (Other areas used different ballot containers. A photo from a Meridian caucus location seemed to show a laundry basket receptacle.)

Chavitz told attendees they could vote and leave at any time, but reminded them they were welcome to stay during vote tabulation. Immediately, most attendees joined the line to deposit their ballots in the black-and-yellow plastic tote, which a GOP volunteer manned for the duration of the caucus. Some filled out their ballots at the voting area, where they could mark the candidate of their choice with a black Sharpie in a makeshift voting booth sectioned off by a cardboard partition. Others marked their candidates openly while sitting in the bleachers. The line to deposit their ballots snaked around the voting area, and there was a bit of confusion about which line was for voting and which line was to deposit the ballot.

While participants waited, Chafetz took to the microphone to share the state party’s view of why it established a caucus.

The state had a presidential primary before 2023, Chafetz told attendees. “This was eliminated by the Republican Secretary of State Phil McGrane,” he said. Later, he clarified that there would be a primary election for all other Republican candidates in May.

The Idaho Legislature passed a bill in 2023 to eliminate the May presidential primary in an effort to consolidate elections. The bill, sponsored by McGrane and House Majority Caucus Chairman Dustin Manwaring, didn’t add a new presidential primary date. Subsequent attempts to reestablish that date failed, leaving it up to the Idaho Republican Party to establish a process to nominate presidential candidates.

At 12:30 p.m., it took less than five minutes to get through and deposit a ballot.

Most participants left as soon as they deposited their ballots. After 12:40, the queue to vote dried up, and voters could check in and vote without a wait.

During the wait, fellow volunteers asked precinct committeeman Paul Lewer when the caucus would shut down. Lewer said Borah High would close at 2 p.m., but added the state party had given individual caucus sites flexibility on when to close their doors.

As 2 p.m. approached, a few voters trickled in. About 25 caucus participants stuck around to witness the tabulation process, but most left as soon as they voted. At Borah High, five volunteers started tabulating votes shortly after 2 p.m.

Tabulation (and zip tie removal) happened publicly. The precinct volunteer who had manned the storage tub-turned-ballot box dumped the ballots onto the table. The tabulators sorted the ballots into piles for Trump, Nikki Haley, and others, then counted each, while a handful of observers filmed and watched the process. Local Trump and Haley representatives were among those who watched.

Two separate tabulators counted the piles and checked the totals to make sure everything matched. Borah volunteers were lucky; the counts matched on the first round. Chafetz announced the results, with observers cheering. Trump won handily, with 441 of the 623 ballots cast.

CLOSING CONFUSION

For most of those who voted, it was a smooth, fast process. But that doesn’t mean there wasn’t confusion, especially for those who didn’t get a chance to vote.

It wasn’t clear when the caucus ended statewide. A March 2 email from the Idaho Republican Party encouraged people to be in line by 1:30 p.m. MT “to ensure you get checked in with enough time to participate.” Nothing in the email stated the caucus sites would close soon after, nor gave any specific time that the process would wrap up.

Lewer told Idaho Reports the party gave the 210 individual caucus sites flexibility on when to close to account for different circumstances. District 17’s caucus closed at 2 p.m. Others may have chosen a different time, he said.

Borah’s tabulation ended shortly after 2:30 p.m., but hopeful voters were still arriving in the Borah High School parking lot. Rhonda Pyle, an apartment maintenance and retail worker, showed her Idaho GOP mailer to Idaho Reports and pointed out that nowhere did it say when the caucus would end.

Pyle wasn’t alone. As she was talking to Idaho Reports, another voter walked up to the front doors of the high school and was greeted by friends who told him the caucus had ended.

“There’s a car full of ladies that just came through,” Pyle said. She had been excited to participate in the caucus and was visibly upset that she had missed the window.

“I just wanted my voice heard,” she said.

Lewer said the uncertainty around the caucus closing time was his biggest lament about an otherwise successful caucus. He acknowledged the disappointment from those who missed their opportunity to participate, and said he encountered some of those would-be attendees in the Borah High School parking lot as he was leaving.

“In the conversations I had, some people were really understanding and were like, ‘You know, it’s a bummer, but I appreciate your apology,’” Lewer said. “Other people were left pretty steamed, and I understand that.”

EAST IDAHO BLIZZARD CHILLS TURNOUT

Across eastern Idaho, blizzard conditions, power outages and closed roads almost certainly contributed to a low turnout in some caucus locations. At Teton High School, just 61 caucus-goers cast ballots, according to results on the Idaho GOP website. Bear Lake’s caucus site had 104 attendees, of about 2,900 registered Republicans – roughly a 3.4 percent turnout. Madison County, which has around 13,800 registered Republicans, had just 373 ballots recorded on the Idaho Republican Party website, for a voter turnout of about 2.7 percent.

McCammon resident Mike Saville said he drove through a foot of snow to participate in his caucus.

Even in District 17, where roads were dry, turnout hit just over 6 percent. Participants cast 623 ballots, while District 17 has about 10,000 registered Republican voters. Haley volunteer Natalie Fleming pointed out that multiple GOP voters, like deployed military, people with disabilities, ag workers, and first responders were largely unable to participate, since the caucus didn’t allow for absentee or early voting.

Final statewide results weren’t in as of 8 p.m. MT Saturday. During the 2016 presidential caucus, nearly 30 percent of registered voters participated.

Rep. Wendy Horman, R-Idaho Falls, said she attended her caucus, located in a high school with two other precincts. She said the process was smooth and she didn’t see a line, despite the school simultaneously hosting a volleyball tournament and a music festival.

“I didn’t know what to expect,” Horman said. “I blocked out two hours not knowing if I had to stay the full two hours.”

Elsewhere in eastern Idaho, some precincts experienced power outages and closed roads. Horman went to another precinct site, Mountain Valley Elementary School, to drop off campaign materials. Even with a power outage, the caucus continued, though there were just a handful of cars in the parking lot.

“As I was standing at the entrance, a voter walked in presuming she wouldn’t be able to vote because there was no power,” Horman told Idaho Reports. “(A volunteer) assured her there was nothing that required power, and so she proceeded.”

Horman and her husband, Briggs, also escorted a neighbor to the caucus in the inclement weather.

“We have a 91-year-old friend who really wanted to vote but couldn’t drive in the snow, so we went and picked her up,” Horman said. “She was just so delighted to be given the chance to vote.”

“In our area, if you didn’t have a four-wheel drive, it was pretty tough to get out of your neighborhood,” Sen. David Lent, R-Idaho Falls, told Idaho Reports. Lent said he helped with the caucus at Ethel Boyes Elementary School, which served as the caucus location for two precincts. Of those two precincts, just 48 voters participated.

Other than the storm, Lent said he was happy with how the caucus went.

“The people who came were in good spirits and wanted to participate,” he said. “I was pleased with the turnout considering the weather.”

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