Tuesday was the Mississippi Primary Election, and like a good citizen, I turned out to vote. 

I hate voting in primaries in this state. But this week, it was especially humiliating. 

As usual, I drove to the church, walked inside, and approached the table to check in. And like usual, I had to identify as either Democrat or Republican (even though I was hoping things might have changed).

Now, I’m a staunch independent and do not believe that either side is always right all the time. And in Mississippi, you are not required to register to vote as either one party or the other. You’re just registered to vote. 

But at the polls, they FORCE you to publicly declare your allegiance to one party or another. Out loud. Surrounded by a room full of people. Before you can get a ballot. 

Now, being a white man in the Deep South, I shocked almost everyone in the room by saying, “I guess Democrat.” The demeanor of the woman who was checking me in completely changed. The smile vanished, the friendly tone turned to ice. She handed me a ticket and said, “Over there,” pointing to a table at the back of the room.

I walked over with my ticket… and was informed they had no ballots. I was required to vote electronically. 

So here I am, already having lost my secret ballot (because everyone knows who you’re voting for if you say, “Democrat” as there’s only one option for each position). Now I had to stand in the spotlight with a group of other “self-proclaimed Democrats” with no privacy whatsoever. 

The voting machine was this huge, bright screen that had no coverings to keep your choices hidden. And you could feel the eyes on you and see heads shaking the whole time you were waiting. 

And because I had to cast my ballot electronically, while all the Republicans got to do theirs on paper (sitting at tables with privacy covers of course), I’m pretty sure my vote will get conveniently “lost.”

(I’m a little bitter, so maybe I’m wrong about this, but I’m venting). 

I don’t like being forced to vote on party lines. And no one should be forced to tell a group of total strangers which way they’re voting, whether they’re Democrat OR Republican. It’s no one else’s business. 

I know some people will say, “That’s not the point of the primary election. You have to pick one side or the other to get them to face off in the general election.” One, that’s not the point of this rant. And two, you shouldn’t EVER be forced to vote in black and white. But I digress.

The whole point of an election is to have a choice in who represents you and to make that choice secretly, privately, and safely. 

But do you really have a choice when you can only vote one way? And can you really feel safe during the process, especially as someone voting Democrat in a deeply red, über-Conservative state? Or as a Republican voting in a liberal one?

The point of this rant is to point out the evils in the system that exist to keep people from voting.

How many people turned away from the polls this week when they discovered they had to identify one way or the other? Republicans in the handful of mostly Democratic areas? Democrats in just about every part of this state? 

(You have to be one brave soul to declare yourself a “bleedin’ liberal” in a Deep South state like Mississippi.)

And, of course, independents like me who hate labels and hate having no real choice!

How many of them left the polls thinking, “Well, my vote didn’t count. Why did I even bother? Why should I come back at the general election? Or the next primary?”

Ask voters from other states—it doesn’t happen this way for them. And they are shocked when they find out this is how we do things here.

Regardless of your political leanings, you can’t honestly say that being forced to tell other people how you’re voting doesn’t feel just a little slimy. 

If that was the only change they made—a private way to get your (extremely limited) ballot rather than shouting it from the rooftops—that would be something. 

But the point, it seems, is to make voting uncomfortable, difficult, and frustrating. Because that lowers voter turnout. Which means nothing changes. 

The extreme people who shout the most, spread the most shit, and make people the angriest, are the ones who stay in power.  

Meanwhile, the moderates who want to get things done, who want to work across the aisle, who care about their PEOPLE rather than their CAREERS, are never heard from.

But again, that’s the point. Maintaining the status quo.

“You can have any color car you want,” Henry Ford once said of his Model T, “as long as it’s black.” 

I suppose we should change it here in Mississippi to, “as long as it’s red.”

(I genuinely don’t care what party you voted for—this isn’t right. If you want privacy and confidence in your vote, let me know. I’m working to figure out how, and to whom, to submit a petition to have this changed. I’ll need your signature.)