Primary
The Primary ( code ) is a party internal procedure of the major parties in the United States to set up the candidates for public office within a party. The procedure was introduced to promote democratic transparency within the parties.
The best known is the pre-election process for the respective presidential election , in which primaries for internal party candidate selection take place for the states, but not in every state (see caucus ). The presidential primaries run from January to June of the election year.
For all other offices, such as in Congress , governors, or members of the state legislature , primaries apply throughout.
A distinction is made between open primary , semi-open primary , semi-closed primary , closed primary and nonpartisan blanket primary . The type of primary used depends on the state , as the right to vote in the US is a matter of state.
Types of Primaries
Open primary
With open primary , all eligible voters are allowed to participate in the primary elections of each party. A membership in the party or even an express party preference are not required. The decision to participate in the primary election of a particular party is covered by voting secrecy.
Semi-open primary
With a semi-open primary , everyone can vote in one of the two primaries, either in the democratic or in the republican primary. You don't have to be a party member, but you can only vote in one of the two.
Semi-closed primary
In a semi-closed primary , all members of a party are allowed to vote and those entitled to vote who are not members of any party.
Closed primary
In the closed primary procedure , every voter must publicly acknowledge his or her party preference. Here, too, it is not necessary to be a member of a party. It is enough to express your affiliation to a party by registering to participate in the area code or just by participating yourself.
Nonpartisan blanket primary
With this system, all applicants for a political office, regardless of party affiliation, can vote in a single area code and no longer separately according to party. For the actual election, the two applicants with the most votes from the primary then compete against each other. Since in this election mode only the two most successful applicants from the primary stand for the actual election, it is not possible to vote to third-party candidates. This automatically leads to the election winner gaining an absolute majority . Since the modified electoral system is independent of party affiliation, it would theoretically also be possible for two candidates from the same party to meet in a main election. This is what happened in the Los Angeles mayoral election in 2013. This voting system only applies in California , Louisiana, and Washington . In California, it was only introduced through a referendum in 2012.
Raiding
Raiding means that voters from one party intentionally choose the weaker candidate in the primary of the other party in order to have better chances in the right election. The problem of raiding only occurs in states with an open or semi-open primary.
literature
- Alan Ware: The American Direct Primary: Party Institutionalization and Transformation in the North. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2009, ISBN 978-0-5211-0972-7 .
- Political system of the USA, information on political education from the Federal Agency for Political Education , No. 283/2004, pp. 25 f., 57.
- Primary - Documentary about John F. Kennedy's primary election directed by Robert Drew
- Sven T. Siefken, primaries in Germany? Consequences of candidate selection based on the US model, in: Journal for Parliamentary Questions, 2002, 33rd vol., No. 3, pp. 531-550
Individual evidence
- ↑ Jennifer Medina: California's Nonpartisan Primary Shows Independents to Be in Short Supply. The New York Times, June 6, 2014, accessed October 19, 2014 .