LAUREL COUNTY, Ky. — Election Day has always been important in my family, especially with a mother who served as an election officer until her health stopped many of her activities.

Voting was just as important as going to church and making good grades in school. While in college, I failed to vote on several occasions because I was out of town, with Mom threatening to remove my name from the book if I didn’t exercise one of my God-given rights as a citizen of this country. I made the drive from Williamsburg on election day from then on because failing to vote was borderline qualification for being disowned!

The May 22 Presidential primary, however, was one that I shunned. With nearly all Republican contenders for this year’s nomination already withdrawn or nabbing minimal votes against Mitt Romney, making the effort to cast a vote seemed nil.

The Presidential caucuses begin with Iowa on Jan. 3, New Hampshire a week later, South Carolina on Jan. 21 and Florida on Jan. 31. February netted the primaries for Nevada, Colorado, Missouri, Minnesota, Maine, Arizona, Michigan, and Wyoming. Washington state voted on March 3, followed by Super Tuesday on March 6 in which Alaska, Georgia, Idaho, Massachusetts, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Vermont and Virginia cast their votes for the Republican candidate to oppose Democratic incumbent President Barrack Obama this November.

Mid-March brought primaries to Kansas, the Virgin Islands, Alabama, Hawaii, Mississippi, Puerto Rico, Illinois and Louisiana. April 3 primaries were held in Washington D.C., Maryland and Wisconsin, followed by April 24 elections in Connecticut, Delaware, New York, Pennsylvania, and Rhode Island.

By May, when Kentucky, Oregon, Nebraska, and Arkansas voted, Romney had already secured the 1,144 delegates necessary to knock out his leading opponents — Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum and Ron Paul, who were ironically still listed on Kentucky’s ballots.

But Kentuckians’ votes don’t seemingly count anyway. The party nominations, whether Democrat or Republican, have already been decided by the fourth Tuesday in May when Kentuckians go to the polls. This fact could be a major contributor to the low turnout across the state for Election Day a couple weeks ago, with less than 10 percent of registered voters statewide even making the effort to vote.

Laurel County reflected the same trend. With 41,883 registered voters in the county, only 3,028 went to the polls on May 22, setting the county’s Presidential Primary turnout at 7.23 percent.

The major factor in state’s Presidential primaries is the timing of Kentucky’s elections. With the candidates already meeting the guidelines for the party’s nomination by the time we vote, Kentuckians aren’t inspired to make the effort for what is, basically, worthless.

To ever have a voice in our nation’s future, we must make a change — not now, but right now. We must time our elections so the citizens of this great Common-wealth have a choice and a voice in the selection of our national leaders. Moving our fourth Tuesday Presidential primary to February, or even March, would be a major step in regenerating the esteem of the voting public and hopefully would inspire others to participate.

We may be renowned world-wide for the Kentucky Derby and we can bring home all the NCAA Championship trophies for the next decade, but until Kentuckians feel that their vote matters in the future of our country, we are at a stalemate in ever restoring the pride of being an American.



njohnson@sentinel-echo.com