Two bills tightening Idaho voting rules head to full House

By REBECCA BOONE

Associated Press

BOISE — A panel of Idaho lawmakers has approved a bill prohibiting so-called “ballot harvesting” and another tightening the timeline for unaffiliated voters to joint a political party before an election.

The House State Affairs Committee sent both bills to the full House with “do pass” recommendations on party-line votes Monday, after hearing opponents testify that both amounted to voter suppression.

The first bill from Rep. Mike Moyle, a Republican from Star, would make it a crime to take mail-in ballots to the post office for anyone who is not a person's household member.

Kendal Shaber with the League of Women Voters of Idaho said the bill is disrespectful and “takes away a voter's right to determine for themselves who they trust to convey their ballot.”

An elderly person without family nearby could no longer ask “their dearest friend, a church member or a neighbor” to drop their ballot in the mail, Shaber said, calling the bill “an awful solution in search of a problem.”

Shiva Rajbhandari, a 17-year-old Boise High Student and the youth director of the voting advocacy group “Babe Vote,” told the committee the bill violated the principals of conservative government by adding an unnecessary law to the books.

“Even the Representative from Star who introduced this legislation will admit that Idaho doesn't have a problem with ballot harvesting,” Rajbhandari told the committee, noting that the legislation acknowledges that Idaho does not currently have significant problems with it.

The bill could cause hospice workers to be criminally charged for mailing a ballot for one of their hospice patients, he said.

But Jason Hancock with the Idaho Secretary of State's office said the Secretary of State supports the bill. Though ballot harvesting hasn't been an issue in Idaho, Hancock said in other states “partisan actors” have gotten involved in the collection of ballots, which he does not think is a good idea.

“We don't believe that ballot harvesting is a good practice in that absentee voting, by its nature objectively, is the least secure form of voting in that ballots are outside the control of election officials,” Hancock said.

The second bill from Rep. Doug Okuniewicz, a Republican from Hayden, would require unaffiliated voters to join a political party before the candidate filing period closes if they want to vote in a closed primary election. This year, that would mean Idaho's roughly 310,000 unaffiliated voters would have to affiliate by March 11 if they want to vote in the closed May 17 primary. Current state law allows unaffiliated voters to make that decision at the polling place on Election Day.

Okuniewicz said the current system allows voters to “game the system," waiting until the last minute to decide if they want to register with a party simply to vote against someone they politically oppose rather than voting for someone who they think best represents their actual political viewpoints.

Hollie Conde with Conservation Voters of Idaho said the shortened timeline would make it harder for voters to determine if a candidate's values truly align with their own, by forcing them to select a party before the candidates may have even held campaign events or shared their platforms. Political candidates often wait until the last minute to file, so some unaffiliated voters could have to choose a side before they know who will be on the ballot.

However, Blackfoot Republican Rep. Julianne Young said political parties are there so people can affiliate together in order to support a certain set of values. Allowing people to join at the last minute can undermine that objective, she said.

Both bills now go the full House.