Who Runs Idaho Elections, and When

Idaho elections are run by counties and supervised by the state. That split explains most of what you will run into as a voter, candidate or advocate. The ballot in your hand was designed, printed, mailed, counted and stored by a county clerk's office. The rules that office follows come from Title 34 of the Idaho Code and from directives issued by the Secretary of State.

Idaho has 44 counties, so there are 44 election offices. Some have a staff of dozens. Some have a clerk and two deputies who also handle marriage licenses and the jury list. Keep that in mind before you say at a meeting or online that a county "failed" to do something. Sometimes it did fail. Sometimes it did exactly what the law asked with four people and a weekend.

Who does what

Office	Main election jobs	Where it comes from
Secretary of State (an elected statewide office; Phil McGrane, elected in 2022, holds it as of this writing)	Chief election officer. Takes filings for federal, statewide and legislative candidates. Certifies voting equipment. Issues directives and forms. Orders post-election audits. Runs the campaign finance system.	Title 34 and Title 67, Chapter 66
County clerk (elected in each county)	Voter registration, ballots, polling places, absentee voting, poll workers, counting, public logic and accuracy tests, records.	Title 34, many chapters
Board of county commissioners	Sits as the county board of canvassers. Reviews and certifies the county's results.	Idaho Code 34-1205
State board of canvassers	Secretary of State (chair), state controller and state treasurer. Certifies statewide, federal and legislative results.	Idaho Code 34-1211
Attorney general	Receives recount applications for federal, state, county and municipal races. Prosecutes some campaign finance violations.	Idaho Code 34-2301, 67-6625

Cities, school districts, highway districts and other local governments do not run their own elections anymore. The county clerk runs them. That has been true since the consolidation law took effect in 2011, and it is why a school bond and a sheriff's race can share one ballot.

The two dates

Idaho Code 34-106 is short and does a lot of work. It allows elections on two standard dates each year:

• The third Tuesday in May. In even years this is the partisan primary. In odd years it is usually bonds, levies and other local questions.
• The Tuesday after the first Monday in November. The general election in even years. City elections and local questions in odd years.

The section also caps counties at two elections a year, with narrow exceptions: emergency elections a governing board calls when there is a public calamity, special elections to fill a U.S. House vacancy as the governor proclaims, and some irrigation district votes in February and August. Water districts are exempt entirely. As of the July 2026 statute update, 34-106 contains no March date. If an older article or a website mentions a March election, check whether it predates the change.

Closed primaries

Idaho's primaries are closed by default. Idaho Code 34-904A says a voter registered with a party may vote only in that party's primary. A party can open its primary to unaffiliated voters, to voters of other parties, or both, but it has to tell the Secretary of State in writing no later than the last Tuesday in the November before the primary. For a May 2026 primary, that was November 25, 2025.

Each party decides for itself. In recent cycles some Idaho parties have let unaffiliated voters in and at least one has kept its primary closed to everyone outside the party. Check the Secretary of State's notice for the current cycle instead of assuming last time's answer still holds.

Here is how the pieces fit:

Voter	What they can do at the primary
Registered with a party	Vote that party's primary ballot. Nothing else, unless another party has opened its primary to members of other parties.
Unaffiliated, and one or more parties have opened to unaffiliated voters	Declare one of those parties' primaries at the polls. The choice goes into their voting history. They stay unaffiliated.
Unaffiliated, and declines to pick	Gets a nonpartisan ballot if there is one (judicial races, local questions).
Unaffiliated, and wants to join a party	Can affiliate up to and including election day under Idaho Code 34-411A.
Registered with Party A, wants to switch to Party B	Must file the change no later than the last day of candidate filing, about 12 weeks before the primary.

That last row catches people every cycle. A voter decides in April that they want a different party's ballot in May, and the deadline was in late February. Both of these things can be true: the voter is upset, and the clerk followed the law. When you bring it up with officials, say both.

The calendar keeps moving

Election law changes most sessions. In 2026 alone, Ballotpedia counted 15 election bills enacted in Idaho, including a change to the county canvass deadline and new residency rules for legislative candidates. Section 34-106 itself has been amended more than a dozen times since 1992. The Legislature posts updated statutes on July 1 each year, so the online text is current as of the last session, not as of last week.

Two habits will keep you out of trouble. First, cite the section number and pull the current text from legislature.idaho.gov each time, even for a fact you "know." Second, read the history line at the bottom of each section. It lists every year the section was amended. A section amended last session is one you should reread line by line.