"Unaffiliated" = "Disenfranchised"

I’m a little annoyed and bitter today because the Maryland primary is today, and I don’t get to vote. Last year when I needed to renew my driver’s license, I finally switched my permanent address over to Maryland and registered to vote here. I can’t even tell you how happy I was when there was an option on the form called “unaffiliated”. I completely object to registering my party affiliation with the federal government. First of all, my affiliation is somewhat fluid, or maybe nonexistent is a better word. I don’t actually identify all that closely with either of the major parties, and I plan to vote based on a few deal-breaker issues. Sadly, one party agrees with me on these deal-breakers while the other party agrees with me on everything else. As a result, I feel absolutely no loyalty to either party and don’t really want to declare affiliation with either. Secondly, and probably more importantly, I object to the federal government asking. I mean seriously, what do they think they are going to do with that information? They aren’t supposed to ask me for my race or gender, so what makes them think they get to know my political position? Nothing good can come of it, and so I refuse to tell them. And because I refuse to tell them, I’m not allowed to vote in an election that could very well determine whether I have to move to Canada.

Laws regarding primaries are tricky, and I’ll not pretend to understand them, but the main point seems to be that the Federal government considers primaries to be a party matter. And thus, they do not seem to care that not everyone is allowed to vote. In my state, you can only vote in a primary of the party with which you claimed affiliation in the previous November. Of course I didn’t find this out until January. Okay, that’s my fault, but I still object, and I’m not sure knowing would have changed my actions. Is it worth telling the government my personal business to get to vote in a primary?

Interestingly enough the primary I most want to vote in is not the one for the party that I’ll most likely vote for in the general election, and it’s not about sabotaging the opposition. The point here is that there are four possible candidates. I can live with three of them if I have to. Shouldn’t I get to make my opinion known in the primary the intolerable candidate is involved in even though I will very likely not vote for the candidate from that party regardless of which one is nominated? And especially regardless of the fact that I refuse to tell the government in advance who I will most likely vote for? Luckily in this case, it looks like the candidate I can’t live with will not be his party’s nominee anyway. Still I’m annoyed and quite sure it’s not right!