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(Northern Rockies News Service) Idahoans are collecting signatures for an initiative that would open up primary elections, and the measure has support from some of the state's military Veterans. 

The group Veterans for Idaho Voters is backing the effort to do away with closed party primaries - so that candidates of every affiliation would be on a single primary ballot, and voters wouldn't have to declare a party affiliation to participate. 

Co-founder of the Veterans' group, Todd Achilles, said the current system stops many veterans from voting.

"Basically, a quarter of Idaho voters cannot participate in the primaries, and one of the biggest groups of independent voters are military Veterans," said Achilles. "And so, we served, but we can't vote the way we want - and that's just fundamentally wrong."

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Achilles noted that primaries are especially important, because that's where many of Idaho's elections are decided. In 2022, 50 of the 105 legislative seats were uncontested in the General Election. 

Opponents of the open primary initiative say it's too confusing for voters and might favor more progressive candidates.

But Achilles said the current, closed primary system has led to more "fringe" candidates winning office.

"When you've got people elected with just a narrow slice of the voters," said Achilles, "they focus on delivering policies that are just narrow, and directed towards that narrow slice of voters."

Under the open primary initiative, the top four candidates from the primary would go on to the General Election - regardless of party affiliation. 

Achilles said in that system, candidates would have to appeal to more people in order to prevail.

"We're bringing more candidates out of the primary into the general," said Achilles, "so there's more competition, there's more options for people to vote. And then, the instant runoff process basically allows us to make sure we've got a candidate that's got broad support among the voters in that district."

Idahoans for Open Primaries has collected more than 50,000 signatures. It needs to collect about 63,000 - including 6% from 18 of the state's 35 legislative districts, by May 1.

Support for this reporting was provided by the Carnegie Corporation of New York.