Disenfranchisement

Your writers recently wrote an editorial about the presidential primary process, and in it explained that the Constitution says nothing about the primary process. That is because the process of nominating an individual for an election is not a government process.

A primary election is supposed to narrow down a group of nominees to just two for the general election. You pointed out that in the Iowa caucuses, only party members can participate in selecting a nominee for the party. That is how it should be. Why should nonmembers of a political party participate in the selection of a party nominee?

We hold 50 different state elections for president in America, according to the Constitution, and the current partisan primary system perverts the process even more.

First, someone who wants to vote for candidates in different offices and from different parties is not allowed to do so. There is no reason for this, and not being allowed to vote for all the candidates a voter wants to vote for is disenfranchisement. Republicans, concerned so much about election integrity, should fix this.

Second, a primary election allows the citizens to select the individuals to be on the general election ballot. But if the people winning the election in some states do not become the nominee of the national party, the winner in a state primary election is replaced by the decision of voters from other states. This also disenfranchises the voters in the individual states.

Your editorial staff correctly says We the People can change the system, if we only would. And we should change it to remove the voters from being disenfranchised by two private political parties.

EDWARD SMITH Farmington