(Reprinted from the October 4 issue of the Seattle Times)

America has always prided itself on being a bastion of democracy, where all political power emanates from the people, all of whom were “created equal.” At least that was the theory. Over the years since the country’s founding, there has been a continuous struggle over the identity of those equal and politically powerful people. It all boils down to the issue of who has the right to vote.

Struggles over voting rights have played a central role in the history of the United States. A savage Civil War was fought to cure the country’s original sin of enslaving people and depriving them of any rights, including the fundamental right to vote. The 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments to the U.S. Constitution were adopted after the Civil War to abolish slavery and guarantee equal rights, including voting rights, to all citizens.

Those amendments addressed the issues of inequality and voting rights in theory, but not in practice. Jim Crow laws enacted by Southern states kept their Black voters from the polls, and women were denied voting rights until ratification of the 19th Amendment in 1920, which granted suffrage to many, but not all, women. The struggle continued, largely unresolved.

I was in law school during what might be characterized as the golden age of voting rights. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 was passed with strong support from Republicans and despite the opposition of Southern Democrats. The U.S. Supreme Court decided a number of cases in the mid-’60s engrafting the one-person-one-vote concept onto the Constitution. It held that every person’s vote within a state must be roughly equal in value. It was expected that these rulings would bring partisan gerrymandering of state legislatures — shoehorning the greatest number of the other party’s voters into the smallest number of congressional districts — to a halt.

Partisans, particularly in the former Confederate states, have worked practically full time since then to undermine those laws and they have been remarkably successful. U.S. Supreme Court majorities, dominated by Republican appointees, have eroded the Voting Rights Act and essentially eliminated the ability of federal courts to provide remedial action against gerrymandered congressional districts. Congress has taken no action to protect voting rights, due in large part to opposition from House members who are beneficiaries of gerrymandered districts.

One of the greatest threats to equal voting rights in the states at this time is the closed-party primary election. My home state, Idaho, is illustrative. Our Republican Party closed its primary election to all but registered party members in 2011. Ever since then, the legislature has moved ever further to the rightward fringes. Culture war issues — a total abortion ban, book bans, anti-LGBTQ+ measures and a critical race theory ban — dominate primary elections, which gives the most extreme GOP candidates a tremendous advantage in the low-turnout primary. A candidate can win the primary with as little of 8.8% of the registered voters in the district. About 90% of the candidates selected in the primary go on to win in the general election in this very red state.

In hopes of reforming Idaho’s electoral system to favor candidates who would actually work to address real problems — school funding, roads, bridges, water and environmental concerns — the Open Primaries Coalition formed to implement a voting system that would give every voter a say in who gets elected to public office. The coalition consists of individuals of every political stripe, including a significant number of traditional, reasonable Republicans.

The Open Primaries Coalition modeled its initiative after the system that worked so well in Alaska in 2022. All candidates, regardless of party, compete on the same primary ticket. The top four vote-getters move to the general election ticket. In that election, voters select their first choice for each office, but they may also rank the other candidates in order of preference. The candidate receiving a majority in the first vote count wins. If there is no winner, the candidate getting the fewest votes is eliminated from the running. The selections on ballots shift upward a notch and a second count is done. If no winner is produced, a third count will do it.

The coalition, fueled by the volunteer signature-gatherers of the Reclaim Idaho group, qualified the initiative for the Nov. 5 general election ballot. That has caused the official Republican Party, presided over by an extreme-right John Bircher, to shift into panic mode.

The Idaho Attorney General, an extremist in his own right, has launched two lawsuits in a desperate effort to strike the initiative from the ballot. The first suit was summarily dismissed by Idaho’s Supreme Court and the second fared no better. It will be a furious fight leading up to the election, but Idaho voters will likely approve the initiative.

Idaho is not the only state where voters are exhausted by the meaningless battles waged by right-wing extremists. Voters in a number of other states have been exploring the potential of implementing ranked-choice voting to restore responsible, civil governing. Nevada will vote on whether to adopt a ranked-choice constitutional amendment this year. Alaskans will vote to determine whether to keep their current system. Ranked-choice voting is on the ballot in the District of Columbia, a Democratic stronghold.

Voter initiatives are a wonderful mechanism to get around recalcitrant legislatures that refuse to represent the will of the people. Since the entrenched interests, be they Republican or Democrat, are opposed to opening up voting to all comers, the initiative is the only means of reforming the closed political systems. It is a valuable mechanism for the preservation of democracy.

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