Earlier this week Ken Ring of Norwich e-mailed Ben Davol about Ben’s column in Sunday’s edition. Ben had pointed out that unaffiliated voters cannot participate in the Aug. 10 primary. He criticized the Secretary of the State’s Office for not doing enough to let unaffiliated voters know they must register with a party before the primary if they want to vote in it. The secretary, Susan Bysiewicz, disagrees with Davol’s assessment and plans to submit her own commentary to us on the topic.

But what Ken Ring was most upset about is the fact that unaffiliated voters can’t take part as unaffiliated voters. He also wrote that he would be interested to know what the “Ruminator” thought about the situation.

Well, Ken, the Ruminator thinks it is outrageous. There are more unaffiliated voters in Connecticut, about 837,000, than Democrats, 739,000, or Republicans, 407,000. But the Connecticut General Assembly lets the parties set their own primary voting rules. The Democrats will only allow Democrats to vote in their primaries, and the Republicans, Republicans.

Now this might be fair if the parties paid for the primary elections, but they don’t, municipal and state taxpayers do. So all those unaffiliated voters are paying for an election they can’t take part in and which narrows their choices in the general election. The Ruminator, registered as unaffiliated, is among them.

It is true that an unaffiliated voter can register as a Democrat or Republican by mail Aug. 5, or in person by noon Aug. 9, and vote in that party’s primary, then go back to unaffiliated immediately after. But why require unaffiliated voters to go through that charade and create so much needless paperwork? It is time to let the unaffiliated voters arrive on primary day and choose which party primary to vote in.

I understand why Republican and Democratic party leaders insist on a closed primary system. They fear letting the unaffiliated vote in their primaries will further erode the political strength of the parties. They are concerned unaffiliated voters could play havoc with the parties’ selection process. And they hope folks who choose to register with a party for the primary will stay registered that way.

But if a party does a good job, it should not have to coerce membership. And by welcoming unaffiliated voters into their primaries, you would think a party would be boosting the chances of getting those folks back and voting for its candidates in the general election. Then there is that little matter of who pays for these primary elections.

I don’t believe registered Democrats should be allowed to vote in Republican primaries, or vice versa. That would bring the potential of voters going into the other party’s booth to select the weakest candidate — not exactly what the Founding Fathers envisioned.

The bottom line, Ken; change the law to allow unaffiliated voters to participate through an open primary process.