ABSTRACT
Primaries additionally give’ the voters only one choice when in fact most primaries are held when reasonable voters might be satisfied with more than one of the candidates, especially in the earlier primaries. About 75 percent of the delegates were selected by primaries in 1980. Polls repeatedly show that people overwhelmingly approve of primaries. The proliferation of primaries in the last decade has been principally the outgrowth of Democratic reform rules, written and rewritten since the party’s tumultuous 1968 convention to increase grass-roots participation in the delegate selection process. The one-issue people generally come out to vote in the primaries, both to demand promises from the candidates and to vote for or against on the basis of gun control, the Equal Rights Amendment, or whatever single siren might be luring them. The primaries also simplify the party’s task, and define its choice, by eliminating some candidates before the convention meets.
