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Democrats joining GOP for primary

by JEFF SELLE/Staff writer
| March 7, 2014 8:00 PM

COEUR d'ALENE - It was a tough decision, but Dan English, a lifelong Democrat who was elected four times as Kootenai County clerk, affiliated with the Republican Party on Thursday - and he's not too happy about it.

"It almost feels like I'm wife swapping," English said. "My wife and I have put a lot of thought and discussion into this. We don't do wife swapping and we don't do party swapping either, but we wound up believing that the best way to practice our electoral fidelity would be to become reluctant, but temporary visitors of the Republican Party."

English and his wife want to exercise their right to vote for their elected representatives, but often those representatives are selected in the Republican primary elections.

When the Republicans closed the primary elections in 2012, it forced anyone who wanted to vote in the Republican primary elections to declare their affiliation to the party. But if voters are already affiliated to another party, they have to change their affiliation by March 14 if they want to vote on the Republican ballot.

"We highly resent that we have to do it this way, because it is like going to your own house and then having some outside person putting up a toll booth and making you pay to go into your own house," English said. "This isn't a party election. It's your election and my election. We paid for it, and if the parties want to have an intellectually pure process, then they should set their own rules and pay for it themselves."

Carrie Phillips, election manager for Kootenai County, said the closed primary has caused some confusion among voters. She said Idaho recognizes four political parties. They are the Constitution, Democratic, Libertarian and Republican parties.

Each of those parties have an opportunity to put forth separate ballots listing their candidates who are running in the primary election. The winner of the primary in each party primary election is nominated by their party in the November general election.

However, if a party fails to put up a candidate for a specific office in the primary, then that party will not have a candidate for that office in the November general election. That has been happening on a consistent basis in Kootenai County.

The Constitution, Democratic, Libertarian parties often fail to field enough candidates for every open position, so the Republican candidates who get nominated in the primary wind up uncontested in the general election.

That has happened in several recent partisan elections. In 2010 alone, there were 10 partisan races that went uncontested in the general election, so the Republican primary winners were elected by default.

"There is no doubt that the primary is the election in Kootenai County because so many races go uncontested in the general elections," said English, who ran the county elections department for 15 years. "If people think this is like a football game where you can tune in to the fourth quarter to figure out who is going to win, they are going to be disappointed because it's all over by then.

"By far, most of the races are already decided in the primaries."

When voters arrive at the primary polls on May 20, they will have to choose which party they want to vote for. Any voter can choose a Constitution, Democrat or Libertarian ballot, but only affiliated Republicans can choose the Republican ballot.

"In my mind the only reason for a closed primary is to depress voter turnout and unfortunately that's happening and the other thing is to build voter identification lists at the public's expense."

The shrinking voter turnout is what prompted English and his wife to cross over.

"If we go along with this we are just going to be a part of the problem by not voting," he said. "Before now you had to vote a straight ticket but nobody had a right to know what ticket you voted on."

Phillips said prior to 2012 voters could register to vote in any election without having to declare a party affiliation, so most of the voters were unaffiliated during the primary election that year.

Those unaffiliated voters are not subject to the March 14 affiliation deadline, and they were allowed to fill out an affiliation form at the polls. Unaffiliated voters, or independents, can still do that this year.

So far this year, Phillips said there have not been many requests to change affiliations like English did, but she suspects most of the voters in this year's primary are likely to be unaffiliated as well.

For voters who registered to vote after 2012, they may have declared a party affiliation on their voter registration form. If they declared any other party affiliation than the Republican Party, they will have to change that by March 14 to vote in the Republican primary.

"I have no problem voting for who I think is the most responsible and qualified Republican, but I resent that I have to go through this process to do it," he said. "Even though I am paying for it, and every other voter is paying for it, they are going to restrict it to a very limited few people.

"This is our way of saying people need to stand up and exercise their voting rights."