This coming November is a presidential general election.  I expect long lines at the polls, much like past presidential elections.

I did vote in today’s primary election.  There was no line at all at my polling place.  Based on what the poll workers were saying, things were not very busy when I arrived at about 9:30am.

I have seen numbers showing early voting is up this year compared to the last primary election cycle in Hamilton County.  In the governor and U.S. local congressional races, the direct mailings and TV ads were all over the place.

We will receive a respite of a few months before the political ads hit the airwaves and mailboxes, probably in late August.  The candidates will be determined, in many cases, based on the primary election results.

I had one Republican voter tell me that person is not voting in this primary because there are no candidates that voter can support….that is a sad commentary on the state of our politics in Indiana.

The only way to increase primary voting, in my view, is to enact an open primary, where your primary vote is not totally tied to declaring a political party.  It would be an improvement, but don’t hold your breath, that is not likely to happen anytime soon.

Indiana continues to have one of the lowest voter turnout rates in the nation.  Is anybody talking about how that could be improved?