Primary election

A primary election is an election in which people in a political party can choose their party's candidate for a future general election.

They are used in many places in the world. It started in the United States during the progressive movement. People tried to take the power of picking a candidate away from party leaders.^[1]

Types

General

There are two general types of primary elections:

• Closed primary,^[2] where only people in the party can vote.
• Open primary,^[3] where anyone can vote in the primary.