Idaho
Election 2024: 146,000 Idaho voters and counting have already voted by absentee ballot • Idaho Capital Sun
With five days to go until the 2024 general election, nearly 150,000 Idaho voters have already voted by absentee ballot, according to the Idaho Secretary of State’s Office.
As of Thursday afternoon, 146,139 Idahoans had cast their vote by absentee ballot, surpassing the total number of votes by absentee ballot in the 2022 election.
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During the 2022 general election, which was not a presidential election, 129,210 Idahoans voted by absentee ballot, according to the Idaho Secretary of State’s Office.
An additional 173,795 Idaho voters had participated in early voting for the 2024 election, as of Wednesday.
“With Idahoans showing up in large numbers for early voting and absentee, we are on the path to a historic turnout for the Nov. 5 general election,” Secretary of State Phil McGrane said in a written statement Wednesday. “I encourage every eligible voter to make a plan, whether it’s early voting through Friday, returning an absentee ballot, or heading to the polls on Election Day.”
About 23% of absentee ballots requested have not yet been returned, so the number of votes by absentee ballot is likely to continue to increase until polls close on Election Day.
Most of the voters who have voted by absentee ballot are Republicans. According to the Idaho Secretary of State’s Office, 82,059 of the absentee ballots that have been returned for the 2024 general election are from registered Republicans. That compares to 33,727 ballots from unaffiliated voters, 29,276 from registered Democrats, 791 from Libertarians and 286 from Constitution Party members.
In an interview Thursday at the Idaho State Capitol in Boise, McGrane said he has been most surprised and impressed by the 173,795 early in-person early votes.
“One of things that I have found most interesting this election is that as of right now, we have more early votes cast than we do absentee ballots cast, and I think if this trend continues today and tomorrow, I think this might be the first election where early voting surpassing absentee voting,” McGrane said. “And that is noteworthy.”
McGrane said he attributes the increase in early voting to voters simply feeling more comfortable voting that way.
“I think we are feeling the energy around early voting this cycle,” McGrane said.
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Idaho legislators have sought to restrict absentee voting
Even though absentee voting is popular in Idaho, some Idaho legislators have sought to restrict absentee voting.
In 2023 and 2024, the Idaho Legislature’s House State Affairs Committee introduced bills sponsored by Reps. Joe Alfieri, R-Coeur d’Alene, and Mike Kingsley, R-Lewiston, respectively, that would have limited who was eligible to request an absentee ballot. Ultimately, the Idaho House killed Alfieri’s bill, House Bill 205, the Idaho Capital Sun previously reported, while Kingsley’s bill, House Bill 667, was sent out for possible amendments and never advanced.
In 2023 the Idaho House passed a different bill, House Bill 259, which would have restricted who could distribute absentee ballot request forms. The Idaho Senate never took House Bill 259 up, which died when the 2023 session adjourned.
All absentee ballots must be received by county elections office before polls close Nov. 5
The deadline to request an absentee ballot in Idaho was Oct. 25. As of Thursday, about 76.7% Idaho absentee ballots that were requested have been returned. Idaho voters must return their completed absentee ballot to their county’s elections office by the time polls close at 8 p.m. local time on Election Day, Nov. 5. On Wednesday, the Idaho Secretary of States Office asked voters who have not yet returned their ballots to use an official elections drop box or take their absentee ballot to their county elections office.
“It is now too late to mail absentee ballots to guarantee arrival by the deadline on Election Day,” the Idaho Secretary of State’s Office said in a press release issued Wednesday.
For Idahoans who do not vote early or by absentee ballot, polls will be open from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. local time for those voting in person on Election Day. Residents can register to vote at the polls in Idaho. To register to vote in person, voters will need a current photo ID and proof of residence.
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Toys for Tots Idaho is experiencing a significant increase in demand this year, with more children on their list than last year.
Currently, 8,400 children are still awaiting toys, and the list is growing by a few hundred each day.
The organization is in urgent need of toy donations to meet the needs of these children.
The organization has provided toys to 25,546 children so far in 2025, surpassing the 25,436 children supported in 2024.
They aim to give each child at least one toy, two stocking stuffers, a teddy bear, and a book.
Donations can be made at Idaho’s Largest Toy Drive taking place at Sportsman’s Warehouse in Meridian daily from 6am to 6pm.
Donations can also be made through their Amazon wish list, accessible via their website, ToysforTotsIdaho.com, with toys shipped directly to their warehouse.
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The organization is also supporting various agencies and community partners, including The Salvation Army Caldwell, Emmett Valley Friendship Coalition, and the Shoshone-Paiute Tribes, among others.
BOISE (Idaho Capital Sun) — Idaho is seeing more money, and more out-of-state money in lobbying than it likely ever has.
Secretary of State Phil McGrane told attendees at the Annual Associated Taxpayers of Idaho Conference Wednesday that more than $2.5 million was spent on lobbying in 2025.
McGrane highlighted new data visualization tools available online at voteidaho.gov, including to track lobbyist spending. (See data visualizations from Idaho Secretary of State’s Office below.)
During the 2025 session, lawmakers approved changes to lobbying reporting that now require “indirect lobbying” to be reported, which would capture activity like social media or texting campaigns during the legislative session to encourage residents to support or oppose certain bills. The new bill also requires monthly reporting year-round, instead of just during the three-month legislative session. Around $700,000 has been spent on lobbying since the 2025 legislative session ended in April, McGrane said.
There are 392 registered in-state organizations that lobby in Idaho, and there are 300 out-of-state organizations registered to lobby in Idaho.
The new data visualization runs through each month of 2025, as the lobbying money gets spent. The state legislative session this year ran January through April 4. By the end of the year, the top spender was Modern Ag Alliance, based out of St. Louis, Missouri. The group spent over $620,000 lobbying on one bill, House Bill 303, which would have largely granted legal immunity to pesticide manufacturers. The bill never advanced out of the committee.
“Most of the spending comes right at the end of February into March,” McGrane said Wednesday. “So in the heat of the session is when money starts to really trickle in. It starts off slow, and then comes in strong.”
The second-highest spender of the year was the American Federation for Children, a Washington D.C.-based organization that advocates for public subsidies for private school education. The entity has spent more than $200,000 in Idaho, with a large focus on House Bill 93 — a private school choice tax credit that provides a total of $50 million for families to go toward private school tuition or other educational expenses. The governor signed HB 93 into law on Feb. 27.
There are around 400 lobbyists registered in Idaho, McGrane said.
“For all of you legislators, that means there’s four of them for each one of you,” he said.
The second new data visualization dashboard available online depicts the close legislative races the state has seen since 2018. All 105 seats in the Legislature are up for election every two years.
There have been 49 legislative primary races decided by 435 — the number of attendees registered for Wednesday’s conference — or fewer votes since 2018.
“Fifty races were determined by just the people here,” McGrane said. “So if we can get more people to participate, more people to show up, they can have a big impact.”
Idaho Capital Sun is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Idaho Capital Sun maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Christina Lords for questions: info@idahocapitalsun.com.
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SOUTH BOISE, Idaho — The Idaho Department of Correction is taking a closer look at sexual safety inside its prisons at the request of Governor Brad Little, following allegations from a former inmate who says she endured years of sexual abuse by correctional officers.
Andrea Weiskircher, who spent 20 years incarcerated in Idaho, told Idaho News 6 that abuse became so common she no longer recognized how wrong it was.
“I came to prison when I was 19. I’m 43 now. So I’ve done 20 years… There’s a lot of things that go on in the prison that shouldn’t happen,” Weiskircher said.
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Weiskircher wrote multiple letters to Idaho News 6 detailing her allegations, prompting renewed attention on how sexual misconduct reports are handled behind bars. This week, she returned to the prison complex for the first time since her release to attend an IDOC Board of Correction meeting on sexual safety.
“I think that I got exposed to a lot of very disturbing sexual activity inside the prison and it became like a normal mindset for me because I’d been there for so long,” she said.
In 2024, Weiskircher filed Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA) reports, submitting what she describes as evidence. She said her case was marked “unfounded,” but after months of speaking out, IDOC has agreed to re-examine it.
During the board meeting – where phones and cameras were not allowed – IDOC officials outlined the department’s reporting system, which includes hotline numbers, intake screenings and mandatory PREA evaluations.
Weiskircher said the policies are not the issue. “They talked about their policy again that they don’t enforce,” she said, adding that retaliation and fear often prevent people from reporting abuse.
Department officials also acknowledged a gap in Idaho law. The current statute defining “sexual contact” only includes intercourse or genital contact – excluding other unwanted intimate acts such as groping or kissing. IDOC Direct Bree Derrick noted in the meeting, “I would think there are people who are already interested in taking this issue up and kind of closing the gap that exists there.”
According to data presented during the meeting, IDOC recorded 188 sexual-misconduct allegations in 2023 – 101 classified as sexual harassment and 87 as sexual abuse. IDOC says only 13 staff-on-resident allegations were reported, and none were substantiated.
Weiskircher said what she heard in the meeting didn’t reflect her experience. “It made me angry. They talked about their policy again that they don’t enforce… the data they just showed the board of directors was false,” she said. She believes her reports, and others she witnessed, were not captured in the numbers presented.
For her, returning to IDOC was about ensuring that future reports are taken seriously. “I’m not going to stop until it gets fixed,” she said.
IDOC says it is working with lawmakers to expand the state’s definition of sexual contact and will continue internal reviews along with required federal PREA audits.
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