● In contrast to many countries with parliamentary forms of government,

where the office of president, or head of state, is mainly ceremonial, in the

United States the president has great authority and is arguably the most
powerful elected official in the world. In addition to the formal
constitutional responsibilities vested in the presidency, in practice
presidential powers have expanded to include drafting legislation,
formulating foreign policy, conducting personal diplomacy, and leading the
president’s political party. The president must be a natural-born citizen of
the United States, at least 35 years old, and a resident of the country for at
least 14 years. A president is elected indirectly by the people through an
Electoral College system to a four-year term and is limited to two elected
terms of office.
Electing the
President
The Constitution only briefly addressed the political and electoral
process. Article II, Section 1, prescribed the role of the Electoral
College in choosing the president, but this section was amended in
1804 by the Twelfth Amendment to remedy the technical defects
that had arisen in 1800. What’s more, the framers, who assumed
that the election process would be nonpartisan, didn’t devise a
method for nominating presidential candidates or even for
choosing electors. The rapid emergence of political parties led to
the role of caucuses, primary elections, and nominating
conventions in choosing a party’s presidential candidate.
Primary Election
● Primary elections are the most widely used method of
indicating preference for a party’s presidential candidate in the
run-up to the national political convention at which the party’s
nominee is chosen for the general election. Conducted by the
states, primaries may be direct (voters decide the candidate) or
indirect (voters elect delegates to choose the candidate), open
(voters chose which party’s primary they vote in) or closed
(allowing only declared members of a party to vote).