196 CHAPTER 7|ELECTIONS
What is clear is that election rules can aff ect results. Particularly in close races,
small changes in the rules governing elections can easily change outcomes. In a close
2008 Minnesota Senate race, for example, press reports suggested that some voters
were turned away because of a shortage of voting supplies. If polling stations had
been required to stock extra supplies, the election outcome might have been diff erent.Presidential Elections
Many of the rules governing elections, such as who is eligible to vote, are the same
for both presidential and congressional elections. However, presidential contests
have several unique rules regarding how nominees are determined and how votes
are counted.THE NOMINATION: PRIMARIES AND CAUCUSES
Presidential nominees from the Democratic and Republican parties are deter-
mined by state-level primaries and caucuses over a five-month period begin-
ning in January of an election year.^7 These elections select delegates to attend
the nominating conventions that take place during the summer. There the dele-
gates cast the votes that determine their party’s presidential and vice-presidentia l
nominees. The format of these elections, including their timing and the number
of delegates selected per state, is determined on a state-by-state basis by the
state and national party organizations.^8 A candidate’s principal goal is to win as
many delegates as possible.
The details of translating primary and caucus votes into convention delegates
vary from state to state, but some general rules apply. All Democratic primaries
and caucuses use proportional allocation to divide each state’s delegate seats
between the candidates; thus if a candidate receives 40 percent of the votes in a
state’s primary, the candidate gets roughly 40 percent of the convention delegates
from that state. Some Republican contests use proportional allocation, but others
are winner-take-all. In these, the candidate who receives the most votes gets
all of the state’s convention delegates. While these rules were not signifi cant in
2012, they had a signifi cant eff ect on the 2008 Republican presidential nomina-
tion. John McCain’s early victories in winner-take-all primaries helped him build
a large lead in delegates that caused some other
candidates to drop out. Overall, McCain won only
47 percent of the primary and caucus vote but
claimed 72 percent of the delegates. In contrast,
in 2012, with fewer states using winner-take-all,
candidates’ delegate totals more closely matched
the total votes they received. However, states are
free to move back to using winner-take-all, which
might advantage certain candidates in a future
contest.
The ordering of state primaries and caucuses is
another important factor, because many candida-
cies do not survive beyond the early contests.^9 Most
presidential candidates pour everything they have
into the fi rst few contests. Candidates who do wellcaucus A local meeting in which
party members select a party’s
nominee for the general election.
proportional allocation Dur-
ing the presidential primaries, the
practice of determining the number
of convention delegates allotted
to each candidate based on the
percentage of the popular vote cast
for each candidate. All Democratic
primaries and caucuses use this
system, as do some states’ Republi-
can primaries and caucuses.
winner-take-all During the
presidential primaries, the practice
of assigning all of a given state’s
delegates to the candidate who
receives the most popular votes.
Some states’ Republican primaries
and caucuses use this system.
THE DESIGN OF THE INFAMOUS
Palm Beach County, Florida,
butterfl y ballot, used in the 2000
presidential election, inadvertently
led some people who intended
to vote for Democrat Al Gore to
select Reform Party candidate
Patrick Buchanan.
primary A ballot vote in which
citizens select a party’s nominee for
the general election.