V4IV Press Release, 13 SEP 23

Veterans for Idaho Voters press release

Boise, Idaho Embargoed until 10:00 am September 13, 2023

Statehouse, second floor rotunda

Press contact: Jim Jones at (208) 513-4185, jimjjust27@gmail.com

Veterans group thanks Otters for support of Open Primary Initiative

A recently-formed group of Idaho military veterans has expressed thanks to former

Governor Butch Otter and First Lady Lori Otter for supporting the Open Primaries

Initiative. The initiative would do away with the closed Republican primary election,

allowing all voters to participate in selecting the candidates who will run in the general

election. The new group, Veterans for Idaho Voters (V4IV), is a cross-partisan group of

Idaho veterans who came together to support the initiative and advocate on other

issues that affect veterans. The Idaho group is affiliated with a national group, Veterans

for Political Innovation, that supports open primaries as a means of reducing extremist

control of party machinery by both ends of the political spectrum.

Scott Syme, an Iraq War Army Veteran and former member of the Idaho House of

Representatives, and Jim Jones, a Vietnam War Army Veteran, said their group has

named the former Governor as V4IV’s “Honorary Chairman” for supporting veterans

during his political life and for giving the Open Primaries Initiative his blessing as a

staunch Republican. Otter served in the Idaho Army National Guard’s 116th Armored

Cavalry from 1968 to 1973.

In giving the Otters the very first hats produced for V4IV, Syme said, “Butch and Lori

made it known at the GOP convention in Sandpoint in 2008 that it was a big mistake for

the party to close its primary election to all but registered Republican voters. That

excludes about 272,000 Idaho independents from having a say in the primary elections.

Since the person selected in the Republican primary usually wins the general election,

independents, almost half of whom are veterans, are effectively deprived of their right to

vote. Veterans served their country to preserve and extend the blessings of liberty to all

Americans, not to set the stage for party bosses of either party to rig the game. All

veterans should have the right to vote in any election in this state, whether primary,

general or whatever else. The Open Primaries Initiative will ensure they have that

important right.”