In 1994, when I turned 18, I voted for the first time in an election. I don’t remember what it was for. (The first U.S. Presidential election I voted in was the 1996 election, when Bill Clinton and Bob Dole were the Democratic and Republican candidates, respectively.) But I remember being so excited to be a part of the election process. It’s a human right to have a literal and figurative vote in your country’s decision process, and I took so much pride in being a voter.

Then I married someone who had a Bachelor’s and eventually a Master’s degree in Political Science. He had—and has—a vast understanding and knowledge of politics, voting and elections. I was in for a rude awakening: I learned more about how the electoral process works (and doesn’t) and what matters (and doesn’t) and how much power I had as a voter (or didn’t).

Politics was never my strong suit in high school and as a Neuroscience major with a minor in Hebrew and Jewish Studies, learning about voting and politics kind of passed me by. The only Political Science class I took in college was Marxism because, at the time, I was more interested in that than in American politics!

Over the years, I wish I could say I have voted every single time I could have. But I haven’t always been able to get there and sometimes I don’t know enough about the issues or the people who are nominated to feel I like could vote as an informed person.

Sometimes people just “vote their party line” and I suppose that has its value, too, even if they don’t know whom they’re voting for.

But here’s my issue with the voting process in general: The system we have in place was created for a new country with colonies and hundreds or thousands of people, not millions. I honestly don’t know if the system we have works for a country of 50 states that is as spread out geographically as it is. What we have now is not what the system was designed for at all.

This country’s voting and government processes were designed as a rejection of the British Parliamentary system. I understand the changes that the American democratic system was setting out to achieve and in so many ways, we did. The notion that every individual’s opinion and vote counts and that everyone should have a right to vote even if they aren’t rich or elite is a really important foundation of this system.

However, now that the country is so vast, the changes that have been made to accommodate that—namely, creating the electoral college and smaller governments in each state and county—don’t seem to be addressing everyone’s needs.

Presidential elections get a lot more attention than most every other election, and unless you believe the whole thing is rigged, we are gearing up for a really important election. Comedian Russell Brand—who I don’t always agree with—said in an appearance on Late Night with Seth Meyers (I happened to be a guest that night, so I was watching Russell from the green room) that in the history of U.S. elections, the party who started out the “race” with the most money has always won. Every single time apparently, the party that starts out with the most money wins.

That’s crazy pants. (As crazy pants as the pants Russell Brand wears.)

Having money means you can buy the most ads, potentially bribe the most people (sorry, but I bet it happens to some extent!), and use the most resources to get your message out there. Russell suggested that we just see who has the most money and skip all of the advertisements and slandering candidates do of each other and just let the person with the most money be president if that’s how it’s going to shake down.

Not that it should be like that, and I don’t think that Russell Brand does either. His comment is pointing out how absurd it is—not only that whoever has the most money wins, but that it’s been true for decades and decades.

I want more from our system. I want more from the people we elect into office. I don’t want us to elect the richest person. That’s not the America my grandparents dreamed of when they fled war-torn Eastern Europe hoping for a better life. They dreamt of a land of possibility and freedom. They dreamt of a place where they could have a better life, in a country where you mattered and the way the country showed you that was by giving you the right to vote.

I believe in that America, and I want to believe that the voting process helps others believe in it too.

Iowa is heating up already, and maybe I will be inspired to believe yet again that the dream is still alive. I sure hope so.