‘Scott does seem to be pretty upset with this’

By Soncirey Mitchell
Reader Staff

The Reader previously reported that the Bonner County Republican Central Committee used ranked-choice voting on Aug. 20 to select three nominees to replace District 3 Commissioner Luke Omodt, who submitted his resignation that day. Those three paragraphs received widespread attention from state media — namely the Idaho Statesman — elected officials and members of the public, and sparked a debate on the definition of ranked-choice voting.

The first people to suggest that the BCRCC used ranked-choice voting were meeting attendees, including Washington Precinct Committeeman Tom Bokowy, who that same meeting brought forward a resolution condemning Republican Idaho Attorney General Raúl Labrador’s “obviously doomed” lawsuit against Proposition 1, a citizens’ initiative that would convert Idaho elections to a ranked-choice model and open primary elections to everyone regardless of political affiliation.

Labrador brought his second lawsuit against Prop. 1 on Aug. 16 — two days after the Idaho Supreme Court dismissed his previous filing — in yet another attempt to bar Prop. 1 from appearing on the November ballot.

The local Republican Party has argued that Prop. 1 would damage election integrity, eliminate party primaries, create a financial burden for state taxpayers and undermine strong conservative elections in the future. 

A screenshot from the Aug. 20 BCRCC meeting where Chair Scott Herndon was recorded giving instructions to committee members to rank their choices to replace outgoing County Commissioner Luke Omodt. “Rank them in order,” Herndon told members, though he now disputes the BCRCC used ranked-choice voting. Courtesy image.

Members of the BCRCC engaged in an emotionally charged debate over Bokowy’s resolution before it failed in a 28-2 vote, with Bokowy and Beach Precinct of Sandpoint Committeeman Dave Britton in the minority.

At the Aug. 20 BCRCC meeting, P.C.s nominated four individuals to replace Omodt, then ranked their top three nominees in order of preference on notecards. The P.C.s selected Grouse Creek Committeeman Ron Korn — who won the Republican nomination for Omodt’s current seat in the May primary election — as the top contender, followed by Oden Precinct Committeeman Tom Cleveland and Hope Precinct Committeewoman Kim Peckham.

The nominations will be sent to Gov. Brad Little on Saturday, Sept. 7, after the effective date of Omodt’s resignation.

The BCRCC’s vote conformed to the organization’s Delegate Selection Rules, ratified in February 2020 and shared with the Reader by Bokowy.

The rules state: “Nominees shall be voted on by ranked vote. Each Precinct Person shall number their choices from lowest to highest with the nominee with the lowest total number being in position one and all other positions being filled in ascending order.”

BCRCC Chair and outgoing Dist. 1 Sen. Scott Herndon, who dispersed the aforementioned rules to P.C.s, took issue with the characterization of the process as a ranked-choice vote.

“We did not use ranked-choice voting in the BCRCC vote,” Herndon told the Reader in an email Aug. 30. “The method of voting proposed by Proposition 1 is used to select one eventual winner of an elected office using multiple rounds of ‘instant runoff voting’ as long as the first round does not produce a single candidate who achieves greater than 50% of the first-round vote. The BCRCC used only one round of voting to select three candidates in a multi-winner election.”

He added: “State party rules require that when we send the names to the governor, that we list them by order of the committee’s preference. We did that by having our voting members list the three names they were choosing in order of priority.”

Herndon went on to claim that the BCRCC’s selection of three candidates for one position was “exactly like a city council election in which three seats needed to be filled from a pool of multiple candidates,” arguing that if Sandpoint’s system isn’t ranked-choice voting, then neither is the BCRCC’s system.

“They are saying it isn’t ‘ranked-choice voting’ since there weren’t multiple rounds,” Bokowy told the Reader in a Sept. 2 email. “This is also funny because despite talking for 30 to 40 minutes about the evils of ranked-choice voting, there wasn’t any explanation given to the P.C.s as to how it would work. In fact, Herndon didn’t know that we were required to rank the choices until [State Committeeman] Dan Vaniman told him that we had to.”

Herndon has since taken to social media to publicly condemn anyone describing the decision as an example of ranked-choice voting.

“[W]e have a couple of liberal members of our county Republican central committee lying about how we recently conducted a central committee election … They have spread the lie through social media and local liberal press,” Herndon stated via the social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter.

“I also predict that two of our committee members will continue to lie to attempt to achieve their agenda,” he added, apparently referring to Bokowy and Britton.

In response to one of Herndon’s posts, Bokowy uploaded a recording of the Aug. 20 meeting, which captures Vaniman explaining the voting process.

“So we are ranking [the candidates] in order?” asked Bokowy on the recording, to which Herndon replied, “Rank them in order, then, in that case.”

After posting the video, Herndon blocked Bokowy on X.

“Scott does seem to be pretty upset with this,” said Bokowy. “So, did Herndon tell us to rank our choices in order? Yes. I have that on video.”

Additional reporting by Zach Hagadone.