Like most Americans who don’t live in the handful of swing states that decide close presidential elections, I’ve watched the pandering, politicking and passion directed at those lucky voters and wondered, what about us? I’m part of the vast electoral desert.

The primaries have been even worse, as we in the clamorous majority have had to stand by idly as a pair of small, overwhelmingly white states chose the party nominees. Oh, for a negative ad, a robocall, an earnest door-beller.

But all of that changed when Washington State moved its presidential nominating contest up to March 10 — so-called Mini Tuesday, when voters in six states get to weigh in. Washington, with 89 delegates at stake, has the second-largest haul, behind Michigan.

But my vote won’t count. It’s not because a nursing home in the Seattle area is at the center of the deadly sweep of coronavirus in the United States. Because there is no in-person voting except for a few special exceptions, the virus outbreak may not affect turnout, though election officials have urged people to refrain from licking their mail-in envelopes. The candidates are staying away, and rightfully so. Social distancing, in a public health crisis, is not the same as shunning.