If you want to take part in the Idaho GOP presidential primary you have till December 31st to register as a republican

TWIN FALLS, Idaho (KMVT/KSVT) — For those Idahoan’s who want to take part in the Idaho Republican Presidential Caucus on March 2nd of this next year, you only have a few more days to make sure you’re registered as a Republican and that your information is up to date.

Idaho Republican Party Chairwoman stopped by KMVT and said that to participate in the republican caucus this year, you must be a registered voter with the Idaho GOP by December 31, 2023, to be able to be a part of the caucus. They will not have absentee ballots for the caucus and Moon explains why.

“If we were to allow for absentee ballots, we’d have to put on a full-blown primary election and that would be literally every election place that was already used by the counties and around the state we would have to do the same thing.”

Moon said there was no time to prepare for and come up with enough money to hold a primary presidential election in 2024.

“The sad part is that we don’t have absentee ballots available, but if people get to the caucus location they can vote in person,” she stated.

As KMVT reported back in October, Idaho Republican and Democratic parties have opted for a state-run presidential primary, but without a legal mechanism for the state to run the elections, both parties have made plans for a firehouse caucus. The republicans on March 2, 2024, and the democrats on May 23, 2024.

The change is a result of an error made in the 2023 legislative session when lawmakers passed House Bill 138 as a means to consolidate the March presidential primary election with the May primary election so that all primary elections in the State of Idaho would be held on the third Tuesday in May as a way to save the state over $2 million in election related costs.

However, when the bill writers were re-drafting the legislation for House Bill 138, they eliminated the March presidential primary date but never wrote in the May date. Lawmakers, along with the Idaho Secretary of State’s office worked to draft a trailer bill, Senate Bill 1186, to add a presidential primary date in May, it died in committee near the end of this last legislative session. Leaving the presidential primaries up to the political parties.

Moon wanted to emphasize that with the GOP firehouse caucus, the Idaho taxpayers will be off the hook for paying for the presidential caucus as the party will be covering the bill.

“The taxpayer, you are not paying for this caucus. We, the Idaho Republican Party are paying for this; and we’re paying for it with the filing fee from the candidates who are running. Donald J. Trump sent in $50,000, then we had DeSantis, then Haley, and Ramaswami and Chris Christie and then Binkley. We have had six candidates who have sent in $300,000 and we will use that money to make sure we have a fantastic caucus around the state,” Moon said.

The last time the Idaho Republican Party held a caucus was in 2012, and for the Idaho Democratic Party was 2012 and 2016. However, this time Moon says that the firehouse caucus will be much more streamlined.

She said, “We will use paper ballots; we will hand count and we will have the final results within a few hours after we get the tabulation reports to us. Then we will canvas those votes once we get all of the paper ballots sent back to the office. "

Neither political party has announced its specific caucus locations yet. Under the caucus rules, there will be at least one caucus site per county.

If you would like to vote in the Idaho GOP presidential primary on March 2, 2024,, you have until this Friday, December 29th to get registered.

To do that you can go to your county courthouse and fill out the necessary paperwork with the county clerk. Or you can register online at www.vote.idaho.gov and click on new or update voter registration.

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