The 2022 Nebraska primary is over. Congratulations to the winners who will advance to the general election in November, and respect to those who were defeated after engaging in this important democratic process.

Thanks to the poll workers and other election officials who ensured that votes were properly counted.

And thanks to the voters, whether you cast your ballots early from home or in a voting booth on Election Day. This year, turnout was on the higher side as primaries go. Statewide, 33% voted. The record is 35% for a gubernatorial primary, 40% overall.

But let’s not congratulate ourselves too much about our somewhat better-than-average turnout. For every voter who showed up, two others skipped the whole affair.

It’s hard to assert that “we the people” are in charge when only a minority of us are choosing our leaders and deciding on important issues.

True, a primary usually isn’t the final chance voters have to weigh in. But sometimes it is.

In Omaha, primary voters decided Tuesday to spend $260 million on major street projects, buildings, parks and more — and to borrow the money to do that.

We’re glad that Omaha’s streets will have the money to be upgraded and maintained, and Omaha’s bond package is designed to avoid raising property taxes more than previously authorized. But the fact is that without the newly-approved bonds, taxes might have declined. Which means that a minority of Omahans on Tuesday committed everyone else in the city to higher levels of property taxes.

It’s tempting to say to the non-voters: “You snooze, you lose.”

Those who cared enough made the choice. But that’s hardly the way to ensure that Omaha’s residents, collectively, will be behind the policies that are chosen.

Low turnout isn’t the only way that our primaries may not reflect the will of the broader electorate.

For example, Republican candidate Walt Peffer won a three-way GOP primary for Douglas County Assessor/Register of Deeds. Since no Democratic candidate ran for the office, Peffer is set to be unopposed in November.

But the 19,234 votes Peffer received in the primary hardly represent the county’s voters. He got less than 42% of the votes cast in his primary race. Since Democrats and nonpartisan voters weren’t allowed to vote in the Republican primary, Peffer had only 16 percent of all ballots cast in the election.

And Peffer’s vote total was only 5% of all Douglas County registered voters.

Yet that partisan 5% group effectively chose the person in charge of setting fair and accurate property valuations for every one of the county’s property owners.

That’s not the kind of participation in representative democracy that we should want.

To do better, more candidates need to step up and run. Many more voters need to show up at the polls. And along with those things, perhaps we need to consider changes that would create better incentives to vote and ensure representative results.

Nonpartisan voters are taxpayers who contribute just as much as Republicans and Democrats to the cost of running elections, but any independent voter who shows up at the polls in a primary is likely to be disappointed by the paltry number of races they can vote in. They shouldn’t be prevented from voting for offices that are classified as partisan, from the governor to county sheriff. They should be able to give their preference on which candidates will advance to the general election ballot, especially if there might not be much choice at that point.

Right now, it’s up to the parties to decide whether to open up their primaries to nonpartisan voters. Democrats, Libertarians and the Legal Marijuana NOW party did this year. Republicans did not, which may be the reason why thousands of voters changed their registrations to Republican in the months before the primary, the only way that they could vote in the state’s hottest primary contest, the GOP race for governor.

The nearly 22% of Nebraska voters who didn’t want to sign up for a party were left on the sidelines as just over one-third of Republican voters picked Jim Pillen to face Democrat Carol Blood in November.

And that GOP primary may well have chosen the state’s governor for the next four years. Given that Republican-leaning Nebraska hasn’t elected a Democrat for governor since Ben Nelson in 1994, Pillen is clearly the favorite.

We’re not sure of the right solution to make primaries more meaningful for independent voters and more representative overall. Some advocate more open primaries or entirely nonpartisan primaries or shifting to ranked choice elections. There are advantages and disadvantages to any change.

But we know this. Primaries like the one we just completed are drawing too few voters, partly because they aren’t set up to encourage participation of all Nebraskans.

And when these low-turnout elections effectively make final decisions in races and ballot issues, the outcome is undemocratic.

Nebraska should look for ways to do better.