It is difficult to say whether there is a connection between the two, but a recent poll found that Americans generally believed the presidential race is too long and a large majority do not know the positions of the candidates. If this sounds like an old Woody Allen joke — “The food here is terrible,” says one person. “Yeah,” replies the other, “and such small portions.” — few voters will be laughing about their choices in November.

The Shorenstein Center at Harvard has been asking questions about the race through its Vanishing Voter project. From the results from a poll it took two weeks ago, 62 percent of voters believed the campaign is too long, 68 percent didn’t know George W. Bush’s position on registering guns, a similar number didn’t know how John McCain felt about campaign financing and even more didn’t know where Al Gore stood on school vouchers.

These numbers certainly will change by Election Day, but one message from this poll might be that voters feel so disconnected from the candidates that they do not see the need to understand the candidates’ views on the issues of the day. Having gone through lengthy primaries, in which candidates spent tens of millions of dollars getting their faces, if not their positions, in front of the public, it is fair to ask whether there is a better way to run a primary.

As it turns out, the Shorenstein Center thought of that, asking those polled one of three questions about alternative systems: a one-day primary vote, a primary vote arranged so that voters in the smallest states went first and those in the largest states last, or a vote through four regional rotating primaries spaced a few weeks apart. The most striking result from these questions was that the alternative was always preferred to the current system. A one-day national vote was the most-popular replacement (56 percent approval), followed by the regional primary (47 percent).

The appeal of a one-day vote is that it gives everyone an equal chance to cast his or her opinion, without the race taking forever to conclude. Unfortunately, it also has some drawbacks, most seriously that it keeps candidates of modest means from competing on a nationwide scale with the big boys and girls. The influence of money under this plan becomes even greater than it is currently.

The regional primaries, however, offer a real alternative. If the idea seems familiar to Mainers, that may be because Maine’s Secretary of State Dan Gwadosky introduced it through a speech he gave in March to the nation’s governors. Formed by the National Association of Secretaries of State, the regional plan lets all candidates cover an area and, by maintaining traditional early races of the Iowa caucus and New Hampshire primary, keeps some retail campaigning for low-budget candidates.

The poll should tell the political parties several things. First, that their candidates waste a lot of money talking without being heard; second, that voters are unhappy with the current primary system; and, third, that alternatives exist that are helpful to both candidates and voters. There’s no reason not to have a new system in place for 2004.