Huckleberries Online

MR: New Election Law Helps Idahoans

Posted by DFO

May 15, 2009 1:13 p.m. • 2 comments

It may not seem like it now, but newly passed legislation to consolidate Idaho elections is a good thing. When the law takes effect in 2011, myriad taxing entities will only have four dates on which to have an election. In the past, elections, especially school bonds and levies, could be scheduled for just about any time during the year. In addition to the primary election on the third Tuesday in May and the general election on the first Tuesday in November, the new law allows for school district elections to take place on the second Tuesday in March and the last Tuesday in August/Murf Raquet, Moscow-Pullman Daily New. More here.

Question: Do you support the action by legislators to consolidate Idaho elections onto four dates? Did you know that Coeur d’Alene is holding a school trustee election Tuesday?

Two comments on this post so far. Add yours!

DCR on May 15 at 2:40 p.m.
It was obviously a ploy to minimize the likelihood that school bond and levy elections will pass in the future. A school bond or levy election in August? Get serious! Most families are vacationing, and when children aren’t in school parents are less involved in education issues and aren’t as aware of a school or district’s needs. Anti education, anti-tax activists got their rhetoric handed to them with all the recent tax issues passing easily, and they somehow got the ear of like-minded legislators on this one.

The epitome of local control is the immediate community deciding when and how local taxing entities ask for money; this is an anti-local control measure at its purest. It also unnecessarily shifted a burden to county clerks, where other taxing entities were more than capable of handling small elections.

Why did they “fix” a decades-old system that wasn’t even broken - at least for the vast majority of voters who participated?
kamm on May 16 at 7:27 p.m.
I think it’s great,
I take my civic resposiblities seriously, but even I couldn’t keep track of where or when and sometimes why.
And how much was spent on these sparsely attended events?
Consolidate them, it’s much more efficient. And let’s get going on mail-in ballots.

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About this blog

D.F. Oliveria is a columnist and blogger for The Spokesman-Review. Huckleberries Online was judged the best 2008 Idaho newspaper blog by the Idaho Press Club. And the best 2007 news blog in the Pacific Northwest by the Society for Professional Journalist. Print Huckleberries is a past winner of the Herb Caen Memorial Column contest by the National Association of Newspaper Columnists. The Readership Institute of Northwestern University cited this blog as a good example of online community journalism.