ABSTRACT
Presidential nominations at the start of the 21st century were won by a process that was both complicated and fl awed, but would any other method be better? Numerous alternatives have been proposed. Many of the ideas are not new. For example, the proposal to switch to a single national presidential primary dates back to the early years of the 20th century. Grouping presidential primaries by region was fi rst suggested in the 1970s. More recently, the Republican Party in 2000 seriously considered a plan to group primaries by state population sizes. Each proposal offers what its advocates see as a more rational method for selecting nominees for the country’s highest elective offi ce. Yet, each proposal has its own set of potential fl aws and likely unintended consequences. How any of these reforms would be adopted is an additional complicating factor.
