You Cannot Vote for Just Anyone You Want

   You cannot vote for just anyone you like in Utah. Nope, can't do it. Your vote won't count.
   You can only vote for candidates registered with the state. If you write in someone's name, your vote will be trashed. It won't count unless that person is registered as a write-in candidate.
   Are we to be told who we can and cannot vote for? Are we to cast our vote only from a state-approved list of candidates?
   I guess I do think this is wrong. A small thing, in ways, but in principle, it is a big deal. Isn't voting for whomever we choose a basic American right? Somehow, I assumed we've had this privilege ever since Thomas Jefferson, James Madison and a few others sat down and drafted the documents making this the free-est nation on earth.
   I say, change the law. This is America. We deserve not only the right to vote, but the right to vote for anyone we choose.

I'll Cast My Own Vote, Thank You

   The caucus system is a great idea in that it involves the citizenry in the political process. Keep it, then, but change it, because it has one very big flaw: What do we do when we get to the caucus meeting? We turn our right to vote over to someone else. Is that such a good thing? We elect someone to do our future electing, sending them off to convention to select the slate of candidates for us.
   It doesn't make sense, to me, to get all dressed up and go to a meeting in the name of being involved just to cough that right to be involved up to someone else. What makes the thought even less palatable is who we are coughing up our future participation to: political activists.
  Why not use the caucus to pare down the number of candidates, and to come up with proposals for party platforms, but invite the whole bunch -- everyone -- to come along to the next step, the convention itself? (We could teleconference our conventions to combine different venues, making room for everybody.)
   Government of the people, by the people, and for the people doesn't mean surrendering your right to vote to political activists. It means keeping that right for yourself. So, if you don't mind, I'll cast my own vote. If the caucus meetings are such a good idea because they involve the people, then having the people along at the next step, the convention, is also a good thing. A good patriot doesn't surrender his rights, he exercises them.