Idaho Republicans could change how future elections are run. Here are 5 issues to watch

With less than three weeks left of this year’s legislative session, Republicans are pushing to pass bills that would change the way future elections in Idaho are run. From limiting absentee voting, to restricting ballot collections, to reinstating the presidential primary, several changes may be coming voters’ way.

Here are a few key election bills that lawmakers are still discussing as they wrap up this legislative session.

Limits on absentee voting

Currently, any voter can request an absentee ballot. But the House could soon vote on a bill from Rep. Mike Kingsley, R-Lewiston, House Bill 667, that would allow only voters who expect to be out of town, are ill or have a disability to vote with absentee ballots. The bill would also prohibit political parties from mailing out absentee ballot request forms to voters.

Kingsley told a House committee this month that mail-in balloting is supposed to be “rare” and discouraged and that it’s now being promoted.

“I think we’ve conflated the idea that the right to vote somehow now has become an affirmative governmental requirement to make sure that everyone gets to vote,” Rep. Vito Barbieri, R-Dalton Gardens, said in support of the bill at the hearing.

Doug Miller, the Valley County clerk who leads the Idaho Association of County Recorders and Clerks, Secretary of State Phil McGrane and Ada County Clerk Trent Tripple all oppose the bill because it would eliminate no-excuse absentee ballots. Miller said he would not be opposed to setting up a standardized absentee ballot request form.

“There’s often a misconception that we have to restrict access to increase security,” McGrane told lawmakers.

No ‘ballot harvesting’

House Bill 599, described as a way to prevent “ballot harvesting,” would make it illegal to collect someone’s ballot and deliver it to a voting location in most instances.

Exceptions would be allowed for family members, caregivers or those who were paid by the voter, and they would only be allowed to deliver six filled-out ballots per election.

The House passed the bill Monday, and lawmakers in support said it would improve election security.

”I think that it’s important that each person’s vote is their vote, and we should not ever try to influence anybody,” said Rep. Brandon Mitchell, R-Moscow, the bill’s sponsor.

House Minority Leader Ilana Rubel, D-Boise, opposed the bill and said the state “should not criminalize good behavior.” She said she has previously taken already filled-out ballots from voters with mobility issues or other challenges and offered to drop them off at a ballot dropbox.

”Being a good Samaritan, helping your neighbor who may have a mobility issue, this would make you a criminal,” Rubel said, adding that she sometimes pays teenagers to help her knock on doors during campaigning, and that if they helped someone deliver their ballot they would be a felon. The bill also outlaws family members from delivering ballots if they “influence the voter in any way.”

Rubel said she would be in favor of making it illegal to tell someone you will deliver their ballot to a dropbox and then not doing so.

“Telling someone you’re going to deliver their ballot and then delivering their ballot — it’s good, it’s helpful,” Rubel said. “Why would we make this a crime?”

A Montana judge struck down a state law restricting absentee ballot collections in 2022, ruling the restrictions were unconstitutional and could have a discriminatory effect on members of American Indian tribes.

Return of the presidential primary

House lawmakers will soon consider a bill, Senate Bill 1371, that would consolidate primary elections in the state to the third Tuesday in April, including presidential primary elections. The bill would reinstate the presidential primary after Republicans inadvertently eliminated it last year when they tried to move it from March to May. The Senate has already passed the bill.

The Republican and Democratic parties instead are both holding party-sponsored caucuses this year. Caucuses, on average, have much lower voter participation than primary elections, according to research from the Harvard Kennedy School, generally because they require larger time commitments, are held on one day in a narrow time frame and often don’t allow early or absentee voting. At the Republican presidential caucus this month, less than 7% of registered voters participated.

Senate Pro Tem Chuck Winder, R-Boise, also introduced Senate Bill 1415, which would create a “preferential” primary, also in April. That vote would not bind parties to endorse particular candidates at their national conventions but would indicate voters’ preferences. That bill has been sent to the Senate floor.

More scrutiny on citizen-led initiatives

Signatures on citizen-led initiative petitions could get more scrutiny if legislators approve a new bill making its way through the Legislature.

House Bill 652 would create a public review period of the signatures submitted for an initiative petition, allow more time for voters to change their minds about signing a petition and require monthly updates on signature gathering.

“It doesn’t make the process harder or easier, it just makes it a little bit better, more transparent,” Rep. James Petzke, R-Meridian, who sponsored the bill, previously told the Idaho Statesman. “It’s not a substantial change. You still need the exact same number of signatures from the exact same places.”

But advocacy groups heavily involved in initiative petitions oppose the bill because they believe it further restricts the process. For Luke Mayville, a longtime signature gatherer who co-founded Reclaim Idaho, the group that’s behind Medicaid expansion and heavily involved in the Open Primaries Initiative, Petzke’s bill is one in a line of efforts that target the initiative process.

Mayville said the new process would allow people to remove their signatures from an initiative after the deadline for collecting signatures has already passed, so supporters would be unable to replace those lost signatures.

“There’s an unfortunate tradition in Idaho history where whenever citizens use the initiative process successfully, the Legislature swiftly moves to restrict the people’s ability to exercise their rights,” he said. “In most cases, if citizens are going to all the pain of putting an initiative on the ballot, it’s because the Legislature had refused to act on an issue of urgent public concern, and oftentimes those in power don’t appreciate ordinary citizens taking things into their own hands.”

Extensions on electioneering limits

Senate Bill 1244, sponsored by Sen. Linda Hartgen, R-Twin Falls, would extend prohibitions on electioneering from 100 feet to 250 feet from polling locations during elections, while also increasing penalties for violations of the law to make three-time violators guilty of a misdemeanor. Electioneering is the practice of promoting political agendas to sway voters.

Secretary of State Phil McGrane told lawmakers that in Kootenai County, one parking spot at a polling location was beyond the current 100-foot limit, and supporters of campaigns have fought to secure that parking spot on the morning of Election Day to promote their candidates. In one instance, he added, there was a collision when two cars competed for the spot.

“We really are seeing a rise in the aggression and tactics that are used at our polling locations around the state,” McGrane, who supported the bill, told a Senate committee.

The bill passed in the Senate but has yet to receive a hearing in a House committee.