by Logan Finney, Idaho Reports

Idaho Attorney General Raúl Labrador’s office appeared in district court Wednesday, arguing the Idahoans for Open Primaries campaign deliberately mislead voters while gathering signatures to qualify their election reform initiative for the November ballot.

“It has not earned the right to be on the ballot if it was advertised falsely,” said Josh Turner, chief of constitutional litigation for the Attorney General.

The initiative sponsors last year challenged the ballot titles that Labrador had assigned to the measure, which are required to be distinct and to describe the measure accurately.

“Idahoans for Open Primaries asked the [Idaho] Supreme Court to call this an open primary,” Turner said, which the justices declined. It is therefore an “objective falsehood” to describe the initiative’s election reforms as returning Idaho to open primaries, he said.

Labrador’s fraud allegations highlight the language organizers used to promote the initiative and to train volunteers, as well as on the clipboards they provided to signature gatherers.

“By naming it the open primaries initiative, they are circumventing the entire purpose of the short ballot title,” Turner said. “We all know as humans that we are prone to sign things without reading.”

Attorney Deborah Ferguson argued the campaign honestly portrayed its initiative to voters.

“To say ‘open primaries’ is simply a shorthand,” Ferguson said. “That’s what a slogan is for.”

Ferguson argued that anyone who signed the initiative had the opportunity to read the official ballot titles on each petition and signature sheet, where they are legally required.

“It is the largest thing on the page, and it is verbatim the court’s official short title,” Ferguson said. “You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink.”

The official initiative titles will also appear in the state’s voter pamphlet and on the ballot itself.

“In no way did that dictate what Idahoans for Open Primaries could use in their campaign,” Ferguson said.  “It would be Orwellian if the government could decide the words it deems acceptable or proper or true to describe our reforms.”

Allowing the open primaries initiative to reach the ballot despite fraudulently gathered signatures, Turner argued, would embolden more dishonest campaigns in the future.

“There would be no deterrent at all,” Turner said. “The lies are going to become even more blatant.”

Fourth Judicial District Judge Patrick Miller said he plans to release his written decision on Thursday morning.

The voter initiative, set to appear on the November ballot as Proposition 1, would change Idaho primary elections by placing candidates from all political parties on a single open ballot. The initiative would permit all registered voters to vote for any primary candidate regardless of political party affiliation, whereas currently only registered Republicans may vote in the closed Republican primary. The top four candidates from the new primary system would advance to the general election. The initiative would also create a new instant runoff voting system in Idaho’s general elections, commonly called ranked choice voting.

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