Commentary

by Dennis Mansfield & Christ Troupis

In Monty Python and the Holy Grail, a peasant confronts King Arthur, “(You) treat me like an inferior!” Arthur responds: “Be quiet, I am your king…” the peasant’s wife mutters, “Well, I didn’t vote for you.”  Her voice echoes strongly today. This November Idaho will adopt or reject Proposition 1 (Ranked Choice Voting/Open Primaries).

The King Arthurs of Idaho want to abolish closed party primaries, to keep the peasants quiet. Vote NO on Prop 1.

Many will vote on this proposition without knowing much about it. They’ll vote based on a vague, feel-good sense of “fairness.” Machine politicians will smile. But this is not good for Idaho. So, who is it good for? A lot of outside big money interests poured resources into Idaho. The machine politicians were ousted by the rank-and-file Idahoans and left simmering until now. Their combined work is a disaster in disguise.

We have long believed that political parties best serve their purpose when they stick to their principles. In 2008, 18% of votes in the Republican Party Primary were cast by Democrats. That’s why I (Christ) brought suit and I (Dennis) testified on behalf of the Idaho Republican Party to close its primary. 

Democrats don’t vote in Republican primaries to promote GOP values.

We won the lawsuit. A greater benefit: Politicians became more accountable to the People to deliver what they promised. Since then, the Republican Party has elected more candidates who support family values than ever before. The machine politicians have been ousted from control of the party and they don’t like it. They need Democrats voting in an “open” Republican primary to dilute conservative values and promote the “uni-party,” objectives of big government.

Ranked Choice Voting (RCV) works like this: Four candidates are on your ballot. You can vote for each one in order of preference.  If you only like one candidate, you can vote once for that candidate, and you lose your other 3 votes.  If no candidate gets over 50% of the votes, the candidate in fourth place is eliminated, and the ballots of those who voted for that person as their first choice are “reallocated” based on their 2^nd, 3^rd and 4^th choices.  This is a “second vote” for the group whose candidate was eliminated. So, the people who voted for the #4 candidate get two votes. This process continues until someone gets over 50%. If there is another “reallocation”, the people who voted for the #4 candidate get 3 votes, the group who voted for the #3 candidate get 2 votes.  If you only voted for the one candidate of your choice, you get 1 vote. That is vote dilution…and a scandalous attack on the sacred American principle of “one person, one vote”. 

The Foundation for Government Accountability discovered, in the 2010 San Francisco Board of Supervisors’ General Election, more than half of the ballots were thrown out because of RCV, and only 8,200 ballots determined the final result. New York City, Minneapolis and Portland all have RCV.  Is it any wonder, New York City’s council just voted for reparations and voted to release violent criminals without bail? These are the end-results of RCV elections.

The Ultimate Problem

When I (Christ) worked with the Trump team on the 2020 Wisconsin recount, I learned there are a lot of ways to steal an election.  All based on one principle, dilute real votes with ‘fill in the blank’ votes. That’s RCV’s potential. 

With the passage of Proposition 1, the GOP closed primary would be dead and we would be forced to vote for 3 candidates we don’t want, in order to have our 1 vote count. Our vote would be diluted by the rest of the votes and possible voter fraud would be ushered in. It’s a disaster in disguise. Vote NO on Proposition 1. As Monty Python so clearly stated, “We’re not dead yet.”

Dennis Mansfield is a former candidate, a business coach and an author

Christ Troupis is a retired attorney and an author