"We opposed the switch from the September primary to a June primary, and we continue to oppose the June primary today," said Brandt. "The political party (bosses) may like a June primary because it helps their particular candidates. But taxpayers pay for these primary elections. And what's good for a political party may not be good for citizens."

Utah's election cycles — from candidate filings in March, to April and May conventions, to June primary — are out of whack, Brandt said.

"Candidates have to file by mid-March. Too early. People are not even focused on elections then."

Poor turnout in Utah primaries reflects a national problem, said Jowers: "gerrymandering" of U.S. House and legislative districts across the country. "That leads to few really contested races, less interest and less voter turnout," he said.

Taylor agrees that high primary turnout is tied to interesting races. "Competitive primaries solves" the low turnout problem, he believes.

The question is, how do you get interesting, contested primaries? And why in the world would part-time legislators want to create a system that has highly contested primaries, when they themselves may be forced into such a contested primary?

The Utah Legislature — like legislatures in many other states — draws its own legislative-district boundaries, as well as the districts for the U.S. House. But it's the political parties themselves that decide how their nominees are picked.

And Utah has what Jowers defines as an awkward and dysfunctional "dual nomination process."

Both the Republicans and Democrats hold nominating conventions — county conventions in April, state conventions in May. Delegates to those conventions vote on party candidates. Currently, both parties have a 60 percent threshold: If candidates get 60 percent or more of the delegate vote in their districts, they win the party nomination outright and there is no primary.

If no candidate gets 60 percent, the top two candidates face off in a late June primary, with about six weeks between convention and primary vote.

"It's depressing that no one seems to care" about low primary voter turnout, Jowers said. The current election process is "confusing and bewildering — people don't understand it, so they don't bother to vote."

Before 1992, Utah primaries — paid for by the general taxpayer, despite the fact that the primary is actually a political party function — were held either in September or August.

But after the highly contested, big races in 1992, leaders of both the Democrats and Republicans were sick of costly and divisive primary battles going on all summer long. They wanted to pick their party nominees earlier, like in June, which would then allow their candidates to fund raise all summer long, preparing for the fall campaign.