Secretary of State talks to KMVT about the state’s Presidential Primary issue

BOISE, Idaho (KMVT/KSVT) —A legislative move in the Idaho statehouse that was meant to cut the costs of certain elections, it inadvertently cut out the ability for Idahoans to vote in the upcoming presidential primary.

The overall goal of House Bill 138 was to save 2.7 million dollars of taxpayer money.

Funds that are used to run the Idaho presidential primary elections and bolster voter turnout.

According to Idaho secretary of state Phil McGrane, HB 138 intended to merge the “state officials primary election” and the presidential election together on the same date, which would have been the second Tuesday in May. But, due to technical errors during the drafting of the bill, the March primary date was removed, and the May date was never written into the language of HB 138,

After realizing the error, the Senate drafted SB 1186 as a trailer bill to fix the oversight. However, it stalled in the house chambers before the end of the session leaving Idahoans without a voice in the national presidential primary.

In order to fix the debacle, the legislature would need to call itself back into session. However, there are no current resolutions to do so.

McGrane says, “It’s really important to know your local reprehensive or senator, they’re the ones who are setting the policy for our state and so whether it’s the governor or its the secretary of state officer were working with the legislature and following their guidance for what the policy is for the state. So, hopefully we’ll be able to partner with them and find a clean resolution where Idahoans have the opportunity to vote for president this next year.”

McGrane says he spoke to both leaders of the political parties on how to resolve this in the interim, In case Idaho leaders don’t address this at the beginning of the next legislative session in January.

So far, the democrat and republican parties will hold what is called a firehouse caucus. The republicans will host theirs in March and the democrats in May.

Copyright 2023 KMVT. All rights reserved.