Upon arriving home from work for an Election Day break Tuesday PM, I found my neighbor Tom waiting for me. Tom is a dyed-in-the-wool Democrat. He had a list of names in his hand, including the names Luke Malek, Paul Amador and Peter Riggs. He wanted to know if there was anyone else who should be on his list. I pointed out that he couldn't vote in the GOP primary, if he had registered as a Democrat. Tom thought he had. But I urged him to check with the officials at the Precinct 52 polls. Later, I learned that Tom was listed as unaffiliated. He registered as a Republican Tuesday -- and for the first time in his life voted in a Republican primary. Also, he told his son and his son's friend to do the same thing. Three Democrats voting Republican, for mainstream Republicans. That made me wonder: Did Rod Beck & all the other scorched-earth Republicans who fought to close their primaries outsmart themselves? Beck & Co had alleged that Democrats were crossing over, under the open primary system, and voting for centrist Republicans. No one has proven that was the case. In the first election cycle or two after the change, the Tea Party/Redoubt wing of the local GOP were successful in getting uber-conservatives elected in Kootenai County. On Tuesday, things changed. The word was out that Democrats and Independents were losing a chance to have a voice in local and state government by not voting in the Idaho GOP primary. I suspect more Democrats and Independents voted in the county Idaho GOP primary contests this year than ever did previously. And that number is only going to get larger. What goes around comes around/DFO.