House Republicans OK’d a push to add further restrictions to Idaho’s ballot initiative system Thursday night.
The bill would cut the time organizers have to collect signatures from 18 months to 17 months. They’d also have to turn in those signatures on a monthly basis, or they’d be invalidated.
Rep. John Vander Woude (R-Nampa) said that will actually help campaigns who right now collect thousands of extra signatures knowing many will be invalidated.
For example, the open primaries and ranked choice voting initiative must collect roughly 63,000 total signatures to qualify for the 2024 ballot. A portion of those must come from legislative districts across Idaho.
“I don’t have to have that cushion to see what gets verified and what doesn’t because I will know as we’re collecting them, how many are verified,” Vander Woude said.
But opponents said it’ll be a burden, especially in the winter when roads are treacherous, or sometimes impassable.
The bill also lets signatures be removed from petitions without verifying a requester’s identity. House Minority Leader Ilana Rubel (D-Boise) said that’s ridiculous.
“I think that’s, frankly, a nasty trick to be doing to the people of Idaho who think they’ve signed a petition and then throw their signature out. There’s nothing in this bill requiring that they be notified that their signature was thrown out against their will,” Rubel said.
Another opponent, Rep. Todd Achilles (D-Boise), debated in committee earlier this week that the bill conflicts with several deadlines set in state law regarding the initiative process and could also interfere with federal voting law surrounding overseas military personnel.
The legislation still needs approval from the Senate before it could go to the governor’s desk.
Copyright 2024 Boise State Public Radio
