Idaho: Idaho Supreme Court Throws Out Redistricting Plan | Times-News

The Idaho Supreme Court overturned a controversial plan to redraw the state’s legislative districts Tuesday, ordering the commission that made it to adopt a new district map that more closely follows the state and U.S. constitutions.
Twin Falls County Prosecutor Grant Loebs filed a petition on behalf of four Idaho counties and four cities in November, arguing that it wasn’t necessary to split so many counties to create 35 legislative districts of roughly equal population. In the 4-1 decision, the Supreme Court agreed that the adopted map splits more counties than is necessary to meet the U.S. Constitution’s requirement of one person, one vote. It ordered the Redistricting Commission to reconvene and adopt a map with minimal county splits.

Idaho: Vote here, only – cities question county clerk’s decision to consolidate absentee voting | Coeur d’Alene Press

City halls might not be secure enough to house absentee ballot polling locations for November’s election, the Kootenai County Clerk’s Office decided. It’s too expensive to provide staff to work at the absentee polling sites too, the office said, so for the first time in decades, several Kootenai County municipalities won’t have their city halls available for voters to cast an early ballot.

So anyone – from Rathdrum to Hayden – who wants to cast an absentee ballot early and in person will have to do so at the Kootenai County Elections Office, 1808 N. 3rd Street, in Coeur d’Alene. It’s the latest change Kootenai County Clerk Cliff Hayes has implemented since his election to office in 2010, having run his campaign on fixing the issues that arose in the heavily litigated 2009 Coeur d’Alene general election.

Idaho: Idaho settles suit over ballot | Spokesman.com

Idaho has changed its election laws after a Texas prison inmate made Idaho’s presidential ballot in 2008, and a Ralph Nader supporter from Arizona won a discrimination lawsuit over the nominating process.

The fixes were rolled into an innocuous election administration bill that passed near-unanimously this year, but Idaho Secretary of State Ben Ysursa says it could all change again soon. Now that both parties are going to hold caucuses for their presidential picks, Idaho likely will do away with its presidential primary altogether. “There’s no reason to have it,” Ysursa said Tuesday.

Idaho: Ketchum City Council voices support for May special election | Idaho Mountain Express

Without committing themselves to a November vote, a May vote, or any vote at all on the issue of a change in form of government, the Ketchum City Council nonetheless expressed its desire for a special election on the issue.

Ketchum has a “strong mayor” form of government, in which the citizen-elected mayor is the city’s chief administrative officer. Under consideration is a council-manager form of government, in which the administrative head is a hired city manager.

Also being debated is when a vote on changing the form of government should occur. That question has become as controversial as the form-of-government issue itself.

Editorials: A vote here and a vote there | Idaho Mountain Express

It’s not news that the people with political power do their best to maintain it. Making sure people vote is democracy at work. Erecting barriers to keep others from voting is called voter suppression, and that’s exactly what the Republican right is up to in 2011.

To date, 23 states—including Idaho—have passed or are considering new requirements that voters produce picture identification when they come to the polls. Without such proof, a voter in Idaho must sign a document swearing to his or her identity. The penalty for swearing falsely is perjury, a felony.