Interview with Prop 1 Supporter Hyrum Erickson
By Greg Pruett • October 16, 2024Idaho Dispatch had the opportunity to interview a proponent and opponent of Proposition 1.
This interview was with Hyrum Erickson, a Republican Precinct Committeeman in District 34. Erickson has been an outspoken advocate for Prop 1 and done a debate and several interviews on the topic.
You can view Idaho Dispatch’s interview with Erickson by clicking here or at the bottom of this article.
So, what does Prop 1 do exactly? Here is what is written on the long title:
“First, this measure would abolish Idaho’s party primaries. Under current law, political parties nominate candidates through primary elections in which party members vote for a candidate to represent the party in the general election.
The initiative creates a system where all candidates participate in a top-four primary and voters may vote on all candidates. The top four vote-earners for each office would advance to the general election. Candidates could list any affiliation on the ballot, but would not represent political parties, and need not be associated with the party they name.”
Advertisement“Second, the measure would require a ranked-choice voting system for the general election. Under current law, voters may select one candidate for each office, and the candidate with the most votes wins. Under the ranked-choice voting system, voters rank candidates on the ballot in order of preference, but need not rank every candidate.
The votes are counted in successive rounds, and the candidate receiving the fewest votes in each round is eliminated. A vote for an eliminated candidate will transfer to the voter’s next-highest-ranked active candidate. The candidate with the most votes in the final round wins.”
If you wish to watch read our article or watch the interview with an opponent of Prop 1 that Idaho Dispatch interviewed, Nick Contos, you can do that by clicking here.
Tags: Constitution Party, Democrat, Hyrum Erickson, Idaho Dispatch, Libertarian, Nick Contos, Prop 1, Proposition 1, Ranked Choice Voting, RCV News, Republican
11 thoughts on “Interview with Prop 1 Supporter Hyrum Erickson”
Comments are closed.
“Candidates could list any affiliation on the ballot, but would not represent political parties, and need not be associated with the party they name.”
So they can be a hard Leftist and call themselves a republican on election day, then switch back to Marxist democrat after they won? Well, I guess RINOs have been doing this, in a way, for awhile now, but this new freedom to claim any standards & policies that will get you elected just for election day only, is too creepy at a minimum.
This will make it next to impossible for most people to know anything about those on the ballot and what they really stand for. Might as well put on a blindfold while you vote…it wouldn’t make it any more of a guess on what you’re voting for.
But we all know the bottom line. This is a democrat strategy to circumvent a republican majority. No one else who is a true conservative would want it, and most young people are either Left wing or haven’t matured enough to give much thought to the consequences of the hotest political issues.
If this passes, expect a mass migration from Idaho in the coming years, while the state turns into a Leftist hell hole of crime, gangs of illegals, and filthy streets like California, and of course democrats will be blaiming rebubilcans for the problems they created… even after most Conservatives have fled to another Red State.
Way to go, Hyrum. Gotta love a voter with the philosophy, “one man, 4 votes”. You should live in Chicago.
Great points, JE.
There are quite a few things wrong with this guy’s presentation too. A couple of big things:
1) He says independents/moderates should be able to be heard in the primaries, even if they choose not to be a member of the existing parties because they don’t agree with them. If you don’t agree, form your own ****** party. That’s what parties are for! A party is a political society that works together to get candidates elected into the government so that government will reflect its political ideas as much as possible. As soon as you let outsiders choose your candidates, your party is destroyed. The goal is precisely NOT to “give a large part of the electorate a voice” in your party, but to forward YOUR platform.
2) He says the RCV instant runoff works just like a series of regular runoff elections. That is total bunk. In a series of runoffs, each voter gets to vote in each runoff — AFTER having seen the results of the previous. The winner of the final one-on-one runoff will have a true majority. In RCV, the winner will have a majority only of the votes that are left after “exhausted” ballots are tossed out. That will NOT be a majority of all people that voted.
Good evaluation of political parties, but the big point is missing. 275,000 Idahoans are PAYING for the primaries. If you want undiluted anti-RINO, anti-marxist primaries, the parties should pay for them.
By collecting 100k of signatures, Idaho is telling the Freedom Foundation and MAGA that you’ve gone too far. Conservative-leaning, small government, freedom loving citizens are being abandoned by Dorothy’s Trumpublican party. Prop 1 will tend to minimize the impact of extreme party factions and will lead to more moderate government and less divisive political environment.
Not sure who you’re listening to but the parties have to pay for their own primaries. It’s why the candidates have to pony up money to appear on the primary ballot. And it’s interesting that you call Moon an extremist but NOT a conservative. You must have a different view of what a conservative is than I do. I DON’T want moderates! Why? Because they vote with the leftists! I WANT principled conservatives like McGeachin, Fulcher, and others because even our state government is addicted to federal money and the strings which come with it. They’re addicted to raising taxes (remember when they said a 6% sales tax was only going to be temporary?) and spending money to buy votes (Medicare). We should be lowering property taxes and encouraging healthcare reform instead.
I wish that questions about Alaska and their experience with RCV had been addressed. Rob doesn’t “solve” voter apathy. It just gets Democrats elected.
At minute 57 and following Erickson says that even many Republicans don’t want to have to register as Republicans in order to vote in the Republican primary.
Translation: Many who AREN’T Republicans don’t want to have to register as Republicans in order to vote in the Republican primary.
If you were a real Republican; i.e. you subscribed to all the essentials of the platform, WHY wouldn´t you register as one?
Many of these people are probably old school “conservatives”. You know, the people who think a conservative’s job is to push the Leftists back one step after they’ve taken two forward. It’s like G.K. Chesterton said back in the 1920s or so: “The job of Liberals is to make mistakes. The job of Conservatives is to make sure the mistakes are not corrected.”
People need to understand that a party is DEFINED by ITSELF. The party formulates a platform of political principles. If the Idaho Republican platform has become such as to no longer be spineless; if it seeks to turn the tables on Liberals, and push THEM back two steps for every step they take forward, well, if you want to remain an old school loser, be that way.
Just don’t LIE and pretend that you’re still a Republican.
Primaries are intended to be party functions. Governments have stepped in and offered to run them for the parties to avoid having parties pick candidates in the proverbial “smoke-filled back room.” But to allow voters from opposing parties entry into the method that another party uses to select its candidates subverts the primary process and perverts the choices.
Prop 1 basically is a backdoor attempt to Californicate Idaho’s traditional election methods.
gino96
jd9yyj
Good conversation by Hyrum with some great points.
Prop One will free conservatives to be actual conservatives and not beholden to special interests and murky party bosses who demand we toe THEIR line and the line of all their SHADY owners. Voters deserve a say in who represents them, not corrupt party bosses.
VOTE PROP ONE!
The Prop 1 folks came to our neighborhood in Meridian. When i said no thanks to signing their petition they were astounded why i didn’t want open primaries. Acted like north enders or Californians, which are essentially the same. As uninvited guests to my doorstep, they were rude and condescending. In essence a practical example of what rank choice voting would be like. Uninvited guests to my political party making demands without any affiliation. They are the reason for the new No Solicitors sign. Prop 1 is California garbage we need to send back.