This year many voters are confused and angry by the primary date games states are playing, a cross between musical chairs and Russian roulette.

No one is happy; and as of yet, no one has offered any viable idea of what to do about it.

But here’s one idea to ponder that may actually work.

Steph Mineart, a voter in my birth state of Indiana, a mid-sized state that votes at the tail end (and is thus forgotten) of the primary season, has a novel idea.

In order to halt this mad rush by individual states to be first – and to “be counted” – resulting in states moving their primaries earlier and earlier, she says, if it was up to her:

The U.S. would have five days of political primaries, each a week apart, starting the last week of March. The first primary day would consist of the 10 states with the smallest voting population; the rest would increase upward until the fifth week when the largest voting states would hold their primaries in the final week of April. Then there would be a month of campaigning before nominating conventions in May.

The campaigning would be compressed into a shorter cycle that would make it easier for people to follow, and something would actually HAPPEN regularly, rather than endless shots of candidates’ tour buses and baby kissing. The primary wins would actually be representative of the various states and we wouldn’t be unduly influenced by states that don’t really affect the election cycle.

Brilliant.

Of course, it would take an amendment to the U.S. Constitution, but no need to split hairs, right?

Here is the postcard I got in 2000 after I had to change my voter registration after the move from the townhouse on Ayala Drive to the new house on McKinley Avenue. My new polling pace was a block away from the previous one.