Rules Governing Presidential Primaries

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Abstract
Many observers of American politics have been highly critical of the proliferation of primaries that occurred in the 1970s. One of the reasons given for this unfavorable assessment is that the direct primary cannot consistently yield candidates who have broad electoral support--something that is thought necessary to win general elections. And since the major goal of parties is to win elections, this perceived shortcoming is cause for concern. In this article I show, however, that the problem lies not with the direct primary itself, but rather with the rules that govern presidential primaries. In fact, if parties would allocate delegates proportionally to candidates, adopt a preference ballot, and allow independents and "swing" voters to participate, the direct primary would offer an excellent opportunty to nominate candidates with broad support.

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