Why can't the Democrats and Republicans do presidential primaries like the NCAA basketball tournament and just shift the locations every four years? In 2012 maybe Connecticut, Idaho and Arizona go first and in 2016 Vermont, Montana and California and so on. That way, each state gets its turn at being first, and we avoid the large states getting all the attention from the "everybody on the same day" scenario.

Craig Conklin

Raleigh

Primaries aren't fair

On the day Democrats and Republicans were voting in their primaries, Libertarians and Greens were in Wake County Superior Court fighting for their very right to officially exist in North Carolina. The state's election laws, arguably the most restrictive in the nation, routinely disenfranchise minor parties and independent candidates by erecting nearly insurmountable barriers to get their names on the ballot.

So you'll understand why Libertarians, Greens and other alternative parties are not concerned about when North Carolina holds a presidential primary. Many of us refuse to kowtow to the two-party duopoly, especially since they are forced to help fund primaries for parties they do not support. The Democratic-Republican primary is simply not relevant to us, no matter when it is held. It merely offers a choice between Tweedledumb and Tweedledumber.

Political parties should be allowed to choose their candidates in any way they want. If they want primaries, they should run them whenever they want and pay for them out of party coffers. If they choose to nominate in convention, a choice not given to minor parties under state law, they should likewise pay for it themselves and not receive taxpayer money, as the national Democratic and Republican Conventions do.

Then maybe the "primary season" won't drag on for two years.

Brian Irving

N.C. Libertarian Party