Under the radar: Tomorrow’s primary election includes 92 contested precinct committee races in Ada alone
Throughout an area of northeast Boise, hand-printed yellow signs by the roadsides tout “Joel Robinson for Precinct Committeeman.” So, what’s that? Political parties have precinct chairs for every voting precinct, who are elected along with other candidates in the primary election, which is tomorrow. And while these typically are low-key races, they determine who controls the county party organization. The names are different in every voting precinct, and Ada County alone has 144 precincts.
Those who are elected to precinct posts make up the county central committee for the party.
On the Democratic side, just four of the posts are contested in Ada County. But on the GOP side, there are 88 contested precinct posts in tomorrow’s primary. Robinson, who also is running for the Idaho House, unopposed in the GOP primary for the seat held by Rep. John McCrostie, D-Boise, is running against Dwight Johnson, the administrator of Professional-Technical Education for the state and a longtime GOP activist, for the precinct post in Precinct 1603. Two years ago, Johnson defeated Robinson for the same position, 107 votes to 76 votes.
Depending on turnout in a particular precinct, these races can be decided by small numbers of voters. Two years ago, Karianne Fallow, CEO of the Idaho Dairy Products Commission, won a three-way GOP precinct race in Ada County’s Precinct 1407 by one vote – with 65 votes, to challengers W. Cody Larsen, who had 64 votes, and Alan Stroud, with 50. This year, she’s being challenged by Tracey Koellish of Eagle.
Rod Beck lost the Precinct 1505 seat to Lori Rouse last year by five votes; this year, he’s challenging her again.
Freda Cenarrusa, the widow of longtime Idaho Secretary of State Pete Cenarrusa, faces a challenge from Jesse Michael Armstrong for her GOP precinct committee seat in Precinct 1807.
“The precinct races, they’re usually the last race on the ballot,” said Idaho GOP Executive Director David Johnston, “so it’s important for voters to make sure that they go all the way down the ballot and mark who they want as their local precinct committeeman. … Those races, while many view them as small, are still very important and significant. That person is the liaison between their neighborhood and the Republican Party.”
Canyon, Kootenai and Bonneville counties all have significant numbers of contested races for GOP precinct committee posts this spring. Larger counties have the candidates posted on their county elections websites, but in smaller ones, voters may have to call the county elections office to find out if their precinct has a contested race and who’s on the ballot. The local party posts aren’t tracked statewide.
Here’s a link to the full list of candidates for precinct posts in Ada County (scroll down to the very end of the document); and here are last year’s Ada precinct election results for comparison.
