Primary election

Part of the Politics and Economics series
Electoral systems
Comparison of electoral systems Social choice theory Mechanism design List (By country)
Single-winner methods Single vote-runoff methods Plurality (FPP) Two-round (US: Jungle primary) Partisan primary Alternative vote (US: Ranked-choice) Condorcet-IRV Condorcet methods Ranked pairs Schulze Minimax Kemeny–Young Nanson Condorcet-IRV Maximal lottery Positional voting Plurality Borda count Antiplurality Cardinal voting Score voting Approval voting Majority judgment STAR voting Quadratic voting
Proportional representation Party-list List type Open list Closed list Localized list Panachage Mixed single vote Apportionment Highest averages Largest remainders National remnant Biproportional Quota-remainder methods Hare STV Schulze STV CPO-STV Quota Borda Cumulative Approval-based committees Thiele's method Phragmen's method Expanding approvals rule Method of equal shares Fractional social choice Direct representation Interactive representation Liquid democracy Fractional approval voting Maximal lottery
Mixed systems By type of representation Winner-take-all Mixed-member proportional Non-compensatory mixed systems Parallel voting Majority bonus Compensatory mixed systems Additional member system Scorporo Double simultaneous vote Mixed ballot transferable vote Alternative Vote Plus Dual-member proportional Rural–urban proportional
Voting system criteria Spoiler-resistance Condorcet criterion Smith independence Spoiler independence Clone independence Strategy-resistance No lesser evil voting IIA Later-no-harm Later-no-help Rational response Participation criterion Monotonicity criterion Reversal symmetry
Social and collective choice Impossibility theorems Arrow's theorem Majority impossibility Moulin's impossibility theorem McKelvey–Schofield chaos theorem Gibbard's theorem Fishburn's example Positive results Median voter theorem Condorcet's jury theorem May's theorem Campbell-Kelly theorem Harsanyi's utilitarian theorem Tournament sets Smith set Landau set Copeland set Split-cycle set Bipartisan set
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Part of the Politics series
Party politics
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Internal elections Primary election Leadership election Open list Party convention/conference Leadership convention
Party discipline Conscience vote Crossing the floor Party discipline Party line Party-line vote Party switching
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Party primaries or primary elections are elections in which a political party selects a candidate for an upcoming general election. Depending on the country and administrative division, there may be an "open primary", in which all voters are eligible to participate, or a "closed primary", in which only members of supporters of a political party can vote. There are also other variants of primary elections worldwide (discussed below). Electoral systems using first-past-the-post voting for both primaries and the general election are sometimes described as using plurality-with-primaries, to highlight the structural and behavioral similarity of such systems to the plurality-with-runoff system (sometimes called a "nonpartisan blanket primary").

The origins of primary elections 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] However, political parties control the method of nomination of candidates for office in the name of the party. Other methods of selecting candidates include caucuses, internal selection by a party body such as a convention or party congress, direct nomination by the party leader, and nomination meetings.

Parties in countries using the parliamentary system sometimes have an equivalent proces: a leadership election in which party members elect the leader. A party's leader will typically become the head of government should that party win a majority of seats in the legislature. Thus, a leadership election is often considered to be one for the party's de facto candidate for prime minister or premier just like a primary.

However, prime ministerial primaries have been held in inter-party electoral alliances, such as the 2021 Hungarian opposition primary, and also in cases where a single party opted to retain its leader but select someone else as its prime ministerial candidate, as the Portuguese Socialist Party did in 2014.

The inverse may also happen: the Democratic Progressive Party in Taiwan automatically bestows the party's internal leadership on the sitting DPP president.