PHILADELPHIA – Seats in the U.S. House don't often open up in this Democratic-controlled city. And during the May 19 Philadelphia primary, more than one in five voters in Pennsylvania's 3rd District had no say in who their next representative in Congress will be.

As a registered independent who lives in the district, I was one of them. Again.

There's a growing trend of American voters breaking up with American political parties. A Gallup survey in January found that 45% of Americans identify as political independents. And now their voter registrations are starting to reflect that.

Pennsylvania independent voters get shut out again

But in Pennsylvania, voters must be registered as a Democrat or a Republican to cast ballots in a closed-party primary. That means that only registered Democrats in Pennsylvania's 3rd District were the only Philadelphians who got to vote on May 19 for a new representative in the House.

The 3rd District is the bluest House seat in America, the safest territory for Democrats, where 77.5% of voters are registered in that party, according to a breakdown of registered voters by district posted on the state's voting statistics page. Maybe that's why the Republican Party, with just 7.5% of the voters in the district, didn't even field........

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