Today I FINALLY get to go vote in my state’s primary. Frankly, I think it is a crock. Unfortunately, in the United States we have a staggered primary system that eventually determines which candidates will be each party’s nominee to run for president. This means that I am often denied the same opportunity to vote for who I really believe is the BEST choice for the job. By the time my primary comes around so many candidates have already been eliminated, not because they were not worthy contenders, but because they were not given the same amount of network air time, did not yet have the money to fight a decent campaign or have folded their tents for a multitude of other reasons.

I have to admit that I am discouraged and I am tired of not having the same opportunities as the folks in Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada, South Carolina, etc. to elect our leaders. We need to have a national primary so that people living in late voting states like mine get the SAME opportunity to vote for who they really believe is the BEST choice for president.This is NOT a fair and free election when I cannot help determine who will be the nominee. It is a boatload of crap.

While I recognize that there are millions of people on this earth who are truly denied a basic right to elect their own leaders and my complaint might seem feeble in comparison, the fact is that on some much smaller level, I too, am experiencing a type of voter suppression. In the land of the FREE it is ludicrous that my freedom to choose has been taken away by a system designed to reward the “chosen” few. And thats not even wading into the issue regarding the quagmire of super delegates who further restrict my vote rendering it null and void.

So today I will go and vote. It often feels like I do so in vain. But I still believe that it is my responsibility to do so… and so I will. But I will be voting, as usual, for real change. And even though the kind of change I would like to see happen probably never will, I will not give up in the belief that my vote really does count…even if it doesn’t.