In The Booth

Going into the voting booth today, I was struck by a few things. First, the new touch screen voting machines were there. I tried it. Worked pretty well, I guess. Second, I didn’t see my name on the ballot. Ah well. Once every four years is often enough.

But I was also struck by a strange thought. There were two primary races I really wanted to vote in: Democratic Cook County President and Republican Governor. Unfortunately, I could only vote in one of those races.

Since Blagojevich is a likely shoe-in for re-election, I chose the Dem ballot and voted in the Cook County race.

It then occurred to me that limiting a voter to a single party vote is a pretty stupid choice on the part of the parties. There's nothing unethical about voting in two primaries. There’s no violation of "one-man-one-vote" as no office is being filled by this vote.

Why should one party care if I vote in the another party's primary? Isn't the first party interested in what I think of their candidates? Because I have an interest in Forrest Claypool vs. John Stroger, the GOP doesn’t care about me?

Why do we even have public primaries? The whole purpose of the primary is to select a party's candidate for the general election, right? The parties can't do that by themselves? Why not go back to the smoke filled rooms and have desk-pounding bureaucrats make the candidate selections? It might work out better this way. We might have been spared having people like Mike Dukakis run for national office.

Also, we're paying for these primaries out of our own pockets even though the vast majority of us aren't members of the DNC and the GOP. Remember, a primary election is public (read: taxpayer) subsidization of the candidate selection process and only benefits two parties. Well, if I'm paying for it, I want a say in the selection process of EVERY party I'm footing the bill for. Besides, the GOP and DNC have huge sources of cash. Either give me multiple ballots or let the parties pay for their own primaries and leave my taxes alone.

And allowing people to vote in multiple primaries might improve our final choice in candidates. If everyone had a choice in both parties' selection process, wouldn't that tend to get more moderate candidates and fewer fringe candidates nominated? Wouldn't such candidates better represent their constituents?

Then again, the status quo serves the GOP and DNC quite well. And, I'll bet, the incumbents.

That means I probably wasted my votes this morning.