Amerykańskie prawybory – laboratorium systemów wyborczych
American primaries: a laboratory of electoral systems

Summary/Abstract: The article presents American primary elections as a unique procedure of selecting party candidates for major political offices by popular vote. Since little regulation exists concerning the details of the procedure in federal law, the electoral systems for the primaries are determined by each of the two leading parties on a state by state basis. This accounts for their great variety. The combination of three main criteria: the type of elections (primary proper or caucuses), the electoral formula (majority/plurality, proportional or mixed) and the voting rights (open, closed or modified closed) allows, potentially, for 18 different electoral systems, most of which are actually used. This great variety has been presented in a table based on data for 2008 presidential primaries for all 50 states plus D.C. and the territories for both Democrats and Republicans. The second part of the article is devoted to the development of the primaries system, political consequences of the various electoral systems presented earlier, as well as controversies surrounding these topics. These controversies concern, among others, the relation between primaries – as opposed to other candidate selection procedures – to candidates’ democratic accountability, their competencies, the influence of mass-media on primaries and the possible profound transformation of the whole institution of primary elections.

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