Election Center
Related Coverage, Page 5
Belmont, Brannon square off in Kootenai clerk’s race
Not long ago Jim Brannon was alleging Kootenai County voting irregularities in a lawsuit contesting an election loss. Now he oversees the elections division and is running to keep his seat as county clerk. His opponent, Larry Belmont, is a former longtime director of the Panhandle Health District who says he wants to give Democrats a reason to vote in a state dominated by the GOP.
Balukoff targets Otter connections to prison scandal in ad
BOISE – The gloves have come off in Idaho’s governor’s race, with Democratic challenger A.J. Balukoff launching a hard-hitting new ad faulting GOP Gov. Butch Otter’s handling of a scandal involving the state’s largest prison. Idaho took over operation of the Idaho Correctional Center this year from private operator Corrections Corporation of America, after multiple lawsuits, reports of violence so intense that the prison was dubbed “Gladiator School,” and evidence that CCA had fraudulently overbilled the state for thousands of hours of guard duty that were never worked.
Betsy Russell: Bujak says he’d consider a future switch to GOP
John Bujak, the Libertarian candidate for governor, says if he’s elected and then runs for a second term, “I will likely run for a second term as a Republican, and I think it will heal the Republican Party.” Bujak said, “My whole life I’ve been a Republican. And I think if you were to ask me where are you on the scale, I’m a Liberty Caucus Republican, I’m a libertarian Republican.”
