A Critique of the Current Method of Scheduling Presidential Primary Elections and a Discussion of Potential Judicial Challenges

Argues that the process of selecting candidates for US president in primary elections held in the spring of election years is marred due to the fact that electors in early-voting states minimize the effect & limit the choices of the electorate in later-voting states. Offering evidence from the 2000 election, it is suggested that voters in later-voting states realized the futility of voting once Al Gore & George W. Bush, the Democratic & Republican candidates, respectively, clinched their parties' nominations in the early-voting states. The states & major parties have little incentive to eliminate this problem internally, & it is unlikely that Congress will intercede in the matter of scheduling primaries, despite having the legislative authority to do so. A potential judicial challenge to the current primary system is outlined, & conditions that it must satisfy in order to succeed are identified. K. Hyatt Stewart