Primary election

The WikiBallot direct democracy CantonMethod
seeks to put into the hands of any electorate community the tools to hold ad hoc informal primary processes to circumvent the Corporate and supranational Party Political Ambition agendas that most candidates fielded by the Two Party Liberal democracy systems which are currently imposed.

[|A primary election]
is the process by which voters, either the general public (open primary) or members of a political party (closed primary), can indicate their preference for a candidate in an upcoming general election or by-election, thus narrowing the field of candidates.

Primaries are used in various countries throughout the world. Its origins can be traced to the progressive movement in the United States, which aimed to take the power of candidate nomination from party leaders to the people.[1] Political parties control the method of nomination of candidates for office in the name of the party.

Other methods of selecting candidates include caucuses, conventions, and nomination meetings.

General
Where primary elections are organized by parties, not the administration, two types of primaries can generally be distinguished:

Closed primary.[2] (synonyms: internal primaries, party primaries) In the case of closed primaries, internal primaries, or party primaries, only party members can vote. Open primary.[3] All voters can take part in an open primary and may cast votes on a ballot of any party. The party may require them to express their support to the party's values and pay a small contribution to the costs of the primary.

United States
In the United States, other types can be differentiated:

Closed primary. People may vote in a party's primary only if they are registered members of that party prior to election day. Independents cannot participate. Note that because some political parties name themselves independent, the terms "non-partisan" or "unaffiliated" often replace "independent" when referring to those who are not affiliated with a political party. Eleven states – Delaware, Florida, Kansas, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, District of Columbia, Nebraska, New Mexico, New York, Pennsylvania, and Wyoming – have closed primaries.[4][5] Semi-closed. As in closed primaries, registered party members can vote only in their own party's primary. Semi-closed systems, however, allow unaffiliated voters to participate as well. Depending on the state, independents either make their choice of party primary privately, inside the voting booth, or publicly, by registering with any party on Election Day. Fourteen states – Alaska, Arizona, Colorado, Iowa, Kansas, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, North Carolina, Ohio[6], Oregon, Rhode Island, Utah, and West Virginia – have semi-closed primaries that allow voters to register or change party preference on election day.[5][7] Open primary. A registered voter may vote in any party primary regardless of his or her own party affiliation. Eleven states - Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Hawaii, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, North Dakota, Vermont, and Wisconsin - have open primaries.[4] When voters do not register with a party before the primary, it is called a pick-a-party primary because the voter can select which party's primary he or she wishes to vote in on election day. Because of the open nature of this system, a practice known as raiding may occur. Raiding consists of voters of one party crossing over and voting in the primary of another party, effectively allowing a party to help choose its opposition's candidate. The theory is that opposing party members vote for the weakest candidate of the opposite party in order to give their own party the advantage in the general election. An example of this can be seen in the 1998 Vermont senatorial primary with the nomination of Fred Tuttle as the Republican candidate in the general election[citation needed]. Semi-open. A registered voter need not publicly declare which political party's primary that they will vote in before entering the voting booth. When voters identify themselves to the election officials, they must request a party's specific ballot. Only one ballot is cast by each voter. In many states with semi-open primaries, election officials or poll workers from their respective parties record each voter's choice of party and provide access to this information. The primary difference between a semi-open and open primary system is the use of a party-specific ballot. In a semi-open primary, a public declaration in front of the election judges is made and a party-specific ballot given to the voter to cast. Certain states that use the open-primary format may print a single ballot and the voter must choose on the ballot itself which political party's candidates they will select for a contested office. Blanket primary. A primary in which the ballot is not restricted to candidates from one party. Nonpartisan blanket primary. A primary in which the ballot is not restricted to candidates from one party, where the top two candidates advance to the general election regardless of party affiliation. Louisiana has famously operated under this system, which has been nicknamed the "jungle primary." California has used a nonpartisan blanket primary since 2012 after passing Proposition 14 in 2010, and the State of Washington has used a nonpartisan blanket primary since 2008.[8]

Primaries in Europe
In Europe, primaries are not organized by the public administration but by parties themselves. Legislation is mostly silent on primaries. The main reason to this is that the electoral system used to form governments, be it proportional representation or two-round systems, lessens the need for an open primary.

Governments are not involved in the process; however, parties may need their cooperation, notably in the case of an open primary, e.g. to obtain the electoral roll, or to cover the territory with a sufficient number of polling stations.

Whereas closed primaries are rather common within many European countries, few political parties in Europe already opted for open primaries. Parties generally organise primaries to nominate the party leader (leadership election). The underlying reason for that is that most European countries are parliamentary democracies. National governments are derived from the majority in the Parliament, which means that the head of the government is generally the leader of the winning party. France is one exception to this rule.

Closed primaries happen in many European countries, while open primaries have so far only occurred in the socialist and social-democratic parties in Greece and Italy, whereas the France's Socialist Party organised the first open primary in France in October 2011.

One of the more recent developments is organizing primaries on the European level. European parties that organized primaries so far were the European Green Party (EGP) and the Party of European Socialists (PES).

United Kingdom
Main article: [|Conservative Party (UK) parliamentary primaries] For the 2010 general election, the Conservative Party used open primaries to select two candidates for Member of Parliament. Further open primaries were used to select some Conservative candidates for the 2015 general election, and there are hopes other parties may nominate future candidates in this way.[29][30]