Primary election

A primary election is an election in which registered voters in a jurisdiction select the candidates who will enter a subsequent election (nominating primary). Primaries are common in the United States, but are generally rare elsewhere in the world. Historically the US progressive movement is held responsible for their general introduction.

Generally, primaries are used to select one candidate on each political party but may also be non-partisan, such as in a run-off primary.

Types of Primaries

Open. Voters may vote in primaries of a party of their choice, the choice to be made at the voting booth. When voters do not pre-register for a party, this is called the pick-a-party primary because the voter can select which party he wishes to vote in on election day. In other open primary states, voters pre-register their party preference but the information is only used by parties for mailing lists and is non-binding.

Closed. Voters may only vote in a primary if they are registered members of that party.

Semi-open. Voters registered with a party may only vote in the primary of their party. Those declining to register with a party may choose which primary to vote in at the voting booth. For example, in West Virginia, Republican primaries are open to independents, but Democratic primaries are closed.

Blanket. No longer in use, allowed voters to vote for one candidate per office, regardless of which party they are a member of.

Run-off. If no candidate receives a majority (50%) the top two candidates may face off in a run-off election. The word "run-off" can refer to either the system using a run-off election, or to the subsequential second election itself.

Other ways that parties may select their candidates include caucuses and conventions. Historically Canadian political parties chose their leaders through leadership conventions although some parties have abandoned this practice in favour of one member, one vote systems.

American Primaries

Primary Challenges

The candidacy of a member of a political party for an office currently held by a member of the same political party is rare and is known as a "primary challenge". Primary challenges generate an excitement in primary elections that is typically absent.

Open vs. Closed Primaries

Primaries are sometimes open only to registered members of that party, and sometimes open to all voters.

In open primaries, voters must typically choose only one primary to participate in that election cycle. Louisiana, U.S.A. is an exception; it uses what has become known as a Louisiana primary. Until 2004 in the state of Washington, U.S.A., this was also not the case, and voters were able to vote in all parties' primaries on the same ballot, though not for more than one candidate per office. This "blanket primary" was struck down by the United States Supreme Court as violating the First Amendment guarantee of freedom of assembly in the case California Democratic Party v. Jones.

Non-Partisan Primaries

Primaries can also be used in non-partisan elections to reduce the set of candidates that go on to the general election (qualifying primary). (In the U.S. many city, county and school board elections are non-partisan.) Generally twice as many candidate pass the primary as can win in the general election, so a single seat election primary would allow the top two primary candidates to participate in the general election following.

When a qualifying primary is applied to a partisan election, it becomes what is generally known as a Louisiana primary: typically, if no candidate wins a majority in the primary, the two candidates receiving the highest pluralities, regardless of party affiliation, go on to a general election that is in effect a run-off. This has the effect of almost invariably eliminating minor parties from the general election; frequently the general election becomes a single-party election, and it has, in one notable case, left voters having to choose "the lesser of two evils," between KKK leader David Duke and Edwin Edwards, a former governor suspected of corruption.

Because many Washingtonians were disappointed over the loss of their blanket primary, which the Washington State Grange helped institute in 1935, the Grange filed Initiative 872 in 2004 to establish a "Louisiana" primary for partisan races, thereby allowing voters to once again cross party lines in the primary election. Supporters claimed it would bring back voter choice; opponents said it would exclude third parties and independents from general election ballots, would result in Democrat or Republican-only races in certain districts, and would in fact reduce voter choice. The initiative was put to a public vote in November 2004 and passed. On July 15, 2005, the initiative was found unconstitutional by the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington. ^* Open primaries have also been placed to the voters in California (as Proposition 62), but failed after heavy advertising from the established political parties bringing up the specter of the Louisiana primary and of the 2002 French presidential election.

In elections using voting systems where strategic nomination is a concern, primaries can be very important in preventing "clone" candidates that split their constituency's vote because of their similarities. Primaries allow political parties to select and unite behind one candidate.

Presidential Primaries

In the United States, the small state of New Hampshire draws international attention every four years because it has the first U.S. presidential primary, although there is current discussion on altering the presidential primary schedule.

Primaries worldwide

Primary elections in Italy

References

Brereton Charles. First in the Nation: New Hampshire and the Premier Presidential Primary. Portsmouth, NH: Peter E. Randall Publishers, 1987.
Kendall, Kathleen E. Communication in the Presidential Primaries: Candidates and the Media, 1912-2000 (2000)
Palmer, Niall A. The New Hampshire Primary and the American Electoral Process (1997)
Scala, Dante J. Stormy Weather: The New Hampshire Primary and Presidential Politics (2003)
Ware, Alan. The American Direct Primary: Party Institutionalization and Transformation in the North (2002), the invention of primaries around 1900

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