Ballot Name Rotation To Continue Senate Kills Legislation Ending Process Clerks Found Confusing

Candidates like having their names appear first on the ballot.

Kootenai County Clerk Dan English was bucking that desire when he lobbied for legislation to end the expensive, error-prone process of rotating candidates’ names on ballots so each one gets to be first.

The process - now required in Idaho - meant printing up five separate versions of the ballot in the last Coeur d’Alene city election alone.

But the Senate voted 19-15 Wednesday to kill the legislation, leaving the current rotation process in place.

North Idaho Sens. Clyde Boatright, R-Rathdrum, and Tim Tucker, D-Porthill, were among the no votes.

Both said they were swayed by Sen. Jim Risch, R-Boise, who argued strongly against the bill.

“A candidate who would lose by 1 percent would have that to complain about,” Tucker said. “I liked his statement about nobody said democracy was going to be cheap.” English, who personally lobbied for the bill along with the statewide county clerks’ association and the secretary of state’s office, said, “I fully intend to bring it back next year.” “We probably need to do a little more education,” he said.

The bill had earlier passed the House with only three no votes.

It proposed listing candidates’ names in random order on the ballot. Other states have gone to that system without complaint.

And recent studies have challenged the theory that being first on the ballot gives a candidate an edge, English said.

Sen. Gordon Crow, R-Hayden, said he checked, and in one precinct he lost in the last election, he was listed first.

County clerks and the secretary of state’s office say the ballot-rotation process creates more chance of errors in tallying votes, and confuses voters who mark their sample ballots, then go in the voting booth and see a ballot that lists the names in a different order.

Tucker said he didn’t buy the ballot-confusion argument, because voters are smart enough to find the names regardless of order. “I don’t believe that they’re confused,” he said.

English said he contacted as many people and groups as he could about the legislation. “I didn’t have any negative response from the general public, the (political) party people or others. I don’t know what they would see as the down side.”

For now, Kootenai County election workers will begin preparing for the rotation process, English said. “I’ve already told our election staff to break out the calculator. We’re going to have to start figuring all the rotations.”

, DataTimes