Filing period for candidates in June. Primary election in August. A “pick a party” primary in which you can’t vote for all the candidates of your choice. No more polling places; instead, ballots will all be sent out by mail to be filled out at home.

Voters will have a lot of changes to get used to this year as authorities keep tampering with our election system. Sometimes it’s due to lawsuits, which produced our new and quite undemocratic “pick a party” primary. Sometime’s its due to finances, such as the all-mail elections, which are cheaper than opening a bunch of polling places and paying the poll workers. And one change often produces another. Counting mail ballots is so slow that the primary had to be moved up to the dead of summer, when hardly anyone is thinking about elections.

Voters tend to be older people who don’t like change, particularly when the old way of doing things was better. Requiring everyone to vote at the polls made for honest elections, quick vote counts and hardly any controversies.

As with many modern “improvements,” all the changes in voting have just made things worse. Nevertheless, you have an obligation to vote this August assuming you’re not on vacation or can find the “sacred” ballot you accidentally threw out with the pile of junk mail.