Every year, people complain about the undue influence of the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary. But the situation is getting worse.

Perhaps it has finally become bad enough to trigger long overdue reform.

This year 34 states, as well as the District of Columbia, will have caucuses or primary elections in January and February - more than triple the number that did so in 2000.

How many more will move up their votes next time?

Before the 2012 presidential election, a regional primary system should be introduced to bring some sanity to the process.

The idea of regional primaries is nothing new.

They were suggested as far back as the 1980s by Alan Dixon when the Democrat represented Illinois in the U.S. Senate. Dixon's proposals went nowhere - but the United States is ready for change.

Voters are fed up with the length of presidential campaigns and with states that vote later in the process being robbed of a meaningful voice.

The latter complaint is the reason why so many states - including Illinois - moved up this year's voting. But it worsened the problem of long campaigns.

At least two proposals are pending in Congress with support from members of both parties that would radically alter the current system. They would group states into regions and designate when each region could have its primary or caucuses. The order in which the regions have their primaries or caucuses would rotate.

Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., introduced legislation in July that would divide the country into four regions that would have primaries or caucuses during a specified period, roughly a month apart, beginning in March.

But the bill, S1905, and its House version, HR3487, sidestep a major problem. Each would still allow New Hampshire and Iowa to conduct their voting earlier.

The legislation follows the "Rotating Regional Presidential Primaries Plan" developed by the National Association of Secretaries of State. That organization adopted the proposal in 2000 and continues to support its implementation.

The NASS approach was also endorsed in 2005 by the Commission on Federal Election Reform.

Another alternative, introduced by Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla, and Rep. Sander Levin, D-Mich., would set up six regions and require two elections in April and May and one each in March and June.

The most significant difference is that the Nelson and Levin bills would not give special treatment to Iowa and New Hampshire.

Letting the small states of Iowa and New Hampshire go first does mute the impact of big money. It enables less well-financed campaigns to build momentum through grass-roots efforts and meeting with small groups.

However, in the end, it still means a relative handful of people in states that don't reflect the nation's diversity (Iowa and New Hampshire are each more than 90 percent white) have too big an impact.

Just saying, "Don't listen to Iowa and New Hampshire," won't work.

The current system is not a very democratic way to decide who the major party's candidates will be every four years.

Rotating regional primaries, in which Iowa and New Hampshire are just part of the mix, is a better way to go.