OPINION: Affordable Idaho

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Reclaim Idaho has a brilliant plan to deal with Idaho’s drug, crime, and homelessness problems while making housing more affordable for everyone. Remember that Reclaim brought us Medicaid Expansion that they promised would cost $350 million but it performed three times better and now costs about a billion dollars a year. Yippee!

Reclaim’s plan is elegantly simple: officially create the Uniparty by outlawing political parties, implement a Jungle Primary and use Ranked Choice Voting. Our intellectual betters at Reclaim know that using our current arcane system where political parties nominate candidates to run for office and are elected using one man one vote produces results progressives find unacceptable; they lose. They also know that everywhere this plan has been implemented progressive Democrats are quickly elected, turning cities and states from red to a fabulous shade of blue. After all, progressive Democrats are the best and smartest; seriously, just ask them.

How will this fix our drug, crime and homelessness problem? These are only problems because troglodyte conservatives think they are. If we just say they don’t exist then that becomes the new reality and poof, problem solved. Sure, the things formerly known as crimes will increase by a tiny fraction, maybe three to eight times, but since they are no longer crimes the crime statistics will drop and the local media will tell you what to believe. Besides what better way to start your day then with the bracing scent of human feces when stepping over a comatose fentanyl addict as you sip your non-fat soy latte through your mask while walking to work because you can’t afford gas. You don’t even have to close your eyes to imagine you are in Seattle or San Francisco.

Once they have defined crime as no longer a problem, that tiny minority of conservative voters (only 58%) will pack up and go, probably to Florida, and so will the tourists, leaving lots of homes on the market and emptying hotels. Houses will finally be affordable and the hotels can house all the immigrants to our new sanctuary state. We will all be global citizens of a world without borders.

Can Ranked Choice Voting really bring us this progressive utopia? Yes it can and here is how. First they eliminate party primaries, then anyone who self identifies as qualified to make rules to run your life can file to be a candidate in the new top-four jungle primary. Candidates can list a party affiliation on the ballot, if they want, but they don’t have to be a member of the party they list. You will recognize the party the candidate identifies as, even if a Democrat identifies as Republican, because mis-partying someone could be a hate crime. Next, everybody can vote for anybody and the top four vote getters go on to the general election.

For the general election you will vote for all four of the finalists in order of preference. That sounds like four times the work, and it is, but Soros funded out of state dark money PACs will be there to tell you what choices to make.

Once your four votes are cast they go into a big computer running a complex algorithm that tallies the votes. In the first round the candidate receiving the least votes is dropped and his votes are redistributed to the candidates according to the complex algorithm and the votes are tallied again. The lowest scoring candidate is dropped and his votes and the previous candidate’s votes are redistributed by the algorithm to the remaining candidates. The counting continues until the progressive Democrat wins.

The big advantage to this system is that it’s absolutely accurate, fair and honest. We know this because the results are the dominion of the big computer and cannot be audited so you can’t prove election fraud. Individual counties cannot be separately tallied because which of your four votes gets counted depends on how everybody else in the state votes so all that can happen is to re-run all the ballots through the big computer again and get exactly the same results…perfection.

We know from the 2020 election that even though there is corruption at nearly every level of government, elections are the one realm that is perfectly accurate everywhere. You can rest assured that our elections are fair and honest because if anyone protests or even says otherwise they will be charged with election interference or racketeering, arrested and thrown in jail. Nobody is above the law.

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Reclaim Idaho is circulating petitions to put an initiative (a new law) on the ballot that removes party primaries and implements a Ranked Choice Voting scheme. If you sign the petition your name and personal information will become part of a progressive Democrat database for future use. Reclaim claims to be a grassroots organization but during the Medicaid expansion effort, out of state Soros funded PACs spent nearly $500,000 hiring paid signature gatherers. You can expect the same this time.

Don’t let Boise turn into San Francisco. If approached to sign the petition, decline to sign.

It’s just common sense.

Here are the short and long titles that will be on the ballot. Note that Ranked Choice Voting is currently illegal in Idaho.

INITIATIVE PETITION 23-86137 — BALLOT TITLES

Short Title (20 words)

Measure to (1) replace voter selection of party nominees with a top-four primary; (2) require a ranked-choice voting system for general elections.

General Title (200 words)

This measure proposes two distinct changes to elections for most public offices. First, this measure would abolish Idaho’s party primaries. Under current law, political parties nominate candidates through primary elections in which party members vote for a candidate to represent the party in the general election. The initiative creates a system where all candidates participate in a top—four primary and voters may vote on all candidates. The top four vote-earners for each office would advance to the general election. Candidates could list any affiliation on the ballot, but would not represent political parties, and need not be associated with the party they name.

Second, the measure would require a ranked—choice voting system for the general election. Under current law, voters may select one candidate for each office, and the candidate with the most votes wins. Under the ranked—choice voting system, voters rank candidates on the ballot in order of preference, but need not rank every candidate. The votes are counted in successive rounds, and the candidate receiving the fewest votes in each round is eliminated. A vote for an eliminated candidate will trans fer to the voter’s next-highest—ranked active candidate. The candidate with the most votes in the final round wins.

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Brent Regan is chairman of the Kootenai County Republican Central Committee.