Change for America’s primary system

By David S. Olsen

Super Tuesday seems a part of the distant past. It was almost a week ago when we went to the polls.

We saw the “results:” the excitement (or disdain) as CNN projected Illinois would be won by Barack Obama and John McCain. And then the results for every other state.

Seems clear enough, doesn’t it? So we know who is leading now, you may think. Wrong.

But haven’t the votes all been counted, you may ask. Well for the most part they have – unfortunately, due to unduly confusing and complex party rules, we don’t know where the candidates stand in terms of delegates. In fact, the Democratic winner of Tuesday’s voting is still officially too close to call.

The delegates – the people who really matter in this system – still have not yet been fully apportioned.

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Quite a complex system to select our candidates!

Think back to Nevada’s caucuses in January. There, Clinton narrowly won the popular vote. However, due to the complexities of the system, Obama was awarded more delegates than Clinton in the state.

How is that equitable?

Each person’s vote is supposed to count equally in this country according to our ideals.

This is not true in the primary cycle. Depending on your congressional district, your vote may mean more or less than your neighbor in the next district.

Is this fair? I think not.

The United States needs to rethink its overly complex and unfair primary system.

We have a right to a transparent process to select our presidential candidates where we learn the results quickly.

We also have a right for our vote to count just as much that of our neighbor.

I don’t have the solution. But I do know that this system isn’t working.