A closed primary offers a greater degree of participation than caucuses. A disadvantage of such primary is that only party members can vote. Hence, voting can be biased as some candidates might be given priority over the others. However, an advantage is that the party members would know who is the suitable candidate to run for presidency. Voters who have declared an affiliation to the party are allowed to participate in that party’s primary. States holding closed primaries include North Hampshire and California.
In an open primary, unlike closed primaries, the voters of a state regardless of their party affiliation can participate in either the Democratic or the Republican primary. An advantage of such primary is that the candidate chosen by the party will be one who is the most popular and has the greatest appeal across party lines. It is also said to be more democratic because the general public gets to have a say in the selection of the candidates. However, the disadvantage of open primaries is that it encourages voters to cross party lines and vote for the opposing party’s worst candidates.
Blanket primaries offer the greatest level of participation. This is because it allows voters to take part for both the Republican party’s primary and the Democratic party’ primary.
The winner-take-all primary and proportional representation primary differ in terms of allocation of delegates to the candidates. In winner-take-all primary the candidate who wins the most votes gets all the delegates. The larger states favour this primary as it increases their weight in the nomination process. On the other hand, in the proportional representation primary, delegates are allocated according to the number of votes cast. It has been used by the Democratic Party since the McGovern Fraser Commission in 1969 recommended an effort to increase the voice of minority groups in the party and to broaden the appeal of its candidates.
Finally, there are the advisory and the mandatory primaries. In advisory primaries voters show their preference for a presidential candidate but also vote for delegates to go to the National Convention. In this case the vote for the presidential candidate is just advisory and the delegates are free to state their own preference. In mandatory primaries, on the other hand, votes are only cast for the presidential candidate and the delegates are selected by the party. These delegates then cast their votes on the National Convention respectively.
The primary season has been criticised due to many different reasons. Firstly, it has been criticised for being too long as it runs from January to June. Also, candidates have to withdraw if they do not gain necessary finance required for such a prolonged campaign. Secondly, the expectations are too high. In the early primaries a candidate is judged on his or her electoral performance in relation to the expectations that have been set by the media including TV, radio and newspapers. Thirdly, it is claimed that the primary season weakens parties. This is because it removes the parties’ ability to nominate their own candidate by putting the power in the hands of the public. It also encourages the creation of personal campaign organisations built around the candidates rather than the party. This usually leads to public disunity. Finally, it is said that it leads to low voter turn out. It tends to be confined to the stronger party identifiers. For e.g. in 1998 only 16.86% of those eligible voted. There has been a process of steady decline in voter turnout since 1970. Turnout is usually higher for Democratic Party. Hence, a Republican candidate could win with less than 5% of the eligible vote. This can be improved by introducing electronic and postal votes.
Hence, to sum up it can be said that the caucus and the primary season are an essential parting of the election season in the USA.