The Nominating Process
The Big Idea
The nominating process is a key part of an election
because it narrows te field of possible candidates
Five ways to nominate
Self-Announcement:
A person declares him or herself to be a candidate
Petition:
A candidate gets a certain number of qualified voters to sign a petition
Caucus:
A group of like-minded people meet to select candidates
Convention:
A political party’s members meet to select candidates
Direct Primary:
An election is held within a party to pick its candidates
How do we get candidates?
Declaration of
candidacy:
each candidate must
do one of the 5 ways to
announce their run.
Primary/Caucus:
candidates go through
this process to narrow
down the field to one
nominee for each of the
political parties.
General
Election
National
Convention:
each party holds a
convention to announce
their pick for the National
General Election
Closed Primary
• Only declared party
members can vote
• Party membership is
established by registration
• the day of the election your
registration is checked and
you are given the ballot for
your party
• 27 states
Open Primary
• any qualified voter can take
part
• voters pick the party primary
they wish to vote in
• you can only vote in ONE
• Virginia is open primary
• Blanket primary
• open
• all names are listed
without party affiliation
Closed Primary pros
• Those who favor Closed have 3 arguments
1.It prevents one party from “raiding” the other’s primary in
hope of nominating weaker candidates in the other party
2.It helps make candidates more responsive to the party, its
platform, and its members
3.It helps make voters more thoughtful, because they must
choose between the parties in order to vote in the
primaries
Closed Primary cons
Critics of Closed
1. It compromises the secrecy of the ballot because it forces
voters to make their party preferences known in public
2. it tends to exclude independent voters from the nomination
process