Upon arriving home for an election day break Tuesday afternoon, I found my neighbor, Tom, waiting for me. Tom is a true-blue Democrat. He had a list in his hand, containing the names of GOP legislative candidates Luke Malek, Paul Amador and Peter Riggs. 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 had been listed as unaffiliated. He registered as a Republican Tuesday – and for the first time in his life voted in a GOP 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 the scorched-earth Republicans who sued successfully to close their Idaho primary in 2011 outsmart themselves? They 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 GOP was successful in getting uber-conservatives elected in Kootenai County and North Idaho. 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 GOP primary of ruby-red Idaho. I suspect more Democrats and independents voted in the North Idaho GOP primary contests this year than ever before. And that number is going to get larger. What goes around comes around/DFO. More here.