Tuesday is Election Day. Or rather, it’s Primary Election Day, with the final election in November. But the way things have shaken out, the November election doesn’t matter, with everything decided in the primaries.  In Utah, anybody can vote in the Democratic primary just by asking for a ballot or showing up at the polling place Tuesday. The Democrats in Utah are so lonesome that they will take anybody.  The Republicans, on the other hand, have a closed primary, and only registered Republicans can vote in the Republican primary. That’s still a fairly low bar and anybody can register as a Republican and get a ballot. But you can’t vote in both primaries. In the general election, all the candidates are on one ballot, and you can pick and choose, alternating parties, voting for some Democrats and some Republicans, or even third party candidates. All the choices are available.   The primary system is designed to help keep people off the general election ballot rather than focusing on good governance. The rules are written by the political parties, which have little interest in good governance. A pox on both their houses, and the horses they rode in on. Stupid as they are, those are the rules we are stuck with. And this year, it’s all happening at the primary. On the congressional level, the Republicans have an absolute lock on the seat in District 3. The odds of a Democrat winning that district are about the same as the odds of a meteor striking another meteor on your birthday.  In the Republican primary, we (meaning only registered Republicans) have a choice between Celeste Maloy and Phil Lyman.  Maloy has been in Congress for one term. She seems to have a well-financed campaign. I get enough postcards supporting her campaign that I could shingle the barn with them. They all say that she is conservative and endorsed by President Donald J. Trump. I keep looking for the part where she lists all of her legislative accomplishments, and can’t seem to find it. But she does have a proven record of having actually occupied a seat in the least productive Congress in history.  Lyman is a real gadfly. He won the nomination from the Republican convention in the recent governor’s election. Cox got on the primary ballot by gathering signatures after his own party booed him at the convention. Cox won the primary and the general elections. Lyman filed a lawsuit asking the court to proclaim him the rightful governor despite not having been elected to anything.  Both congressional candidates have what I consider to be terrible positions on protections for public lands, though I don’t think Maloy has actually driven an ATV over ancient pottery in archeological sites. It’s a disappointing choice. With a Republican win so certain, surely they could come up with somebody better.  Locally, it’s the reverse. This is our first election with the newly imposed districts for the Summit County Council. There are four people running on the Democratic primary in Districts 4 and 5. There are no Republicans running, so the winners of the primary are unopposed in the general election.  Off-year primary election turnout is generally very low. More people will shop at Smith’s on Election Day than will choose the council members for the entire county. In the past, council members all ran at large. Just because of population concentration on the West Side, it was more or less impossible to get elected with only votes from the East Side. While you couldn’t win with East Side alone, you would lose without some East Side support. I always felt like that forced candidates to explore the hinterlands a bit, get acquainted with some significantly different and complicated issues on the East Side, and meet the people on that side of the county. We’re not that different. I know all four people running for the County Council. Any of them is better than either choice we are presented with for Congress. I also have some strong preferences on who I would like to see elected — and don’t get to vote because I’m not in the right district.  Instead of being able to vote for all five council members over a four-year election cycle, I now get to vote for only one every four years. Instead of all of the candidates finding their way to Kamas and Coalville to try to find some supporters, they now can completely ignore the East Side even though they will be asked to make some hugely important decisions on development and infrastructure on the East Side. Somehow, that is supposed to improve representation.  Again, we can thank the political parties for that change. The Republicans got that rammed through in the last minutes of the Legislature’s session in 2025. So council members who have never been east of Highway 40 will be deciding the future of the East Side.  The change that would really improve representation in the county would be to get the political parties entirely out of it, run a primary election where anybody who can round up some modest number of supporting signatures can get on the ballot, and let all of the voters, from all of the county, decide from all of the candidates.  Tom Clyde practiced law in Park City for many years. He lives on a working ranch in Woodland and has been writing this column since 1986. The post More Dogs on Main: The primary election appeared first on Park Record. ...read more read less