OPEN PRIMARIES: Deny parties’ right to choose candidate

Separate Voter Fact from Fiction: Post Falls Press Sunday, Feb. 4. The editorial gives an interesting version of primary voting in the state of Idaho, laying out a system that closes the right of each party to choose its own candidate, calling it an open system.

What the editorial does not tell us is that their system of primary voting denies each political party the right to choose its candidate.

Right now, The Democrat party has the right to chose its candidate and the Republican party has the right to choose its candidate. Then in the General Election, the people decide. In the system portrayed as Open in the editorial, the Democrat party can cross over and choose the Republicans’ candidate and the Republican party can cross over and choose the Democrat’s candidate. This is not open, it closes each political party’s right to choose their desired candidate.

In rank voting, again, the candidate favored by the people can be third on the list and does not win, even though that person is the people’s choice. It’s a clever system to deny the people their choice in both instances. In either case, the political party can gang up and push through their desired candidate and the people’s candidate loses.

JEANNE SAPPINGTON

Post Falls