The first phase of elections or appointing for filling the public office is the process of selecting candidates called the **nomination process.**

Nomination is one of the basic functions of parties and is extremely important for political process. Given that there is practically a two-party system in the United States, the winner of the election will almost certainly be the candidate of one or the other party. This means that the nominations have a decisive influence on which choice will be offered to the voters, and thus on the outcome of the election.

Parties must be very careful when nominating candidates, because these candidates will later oppose the candidates of the other party – the parties must choose well which candidates to nominate so that they have the best possible chances against the candidates of the rival party.

**Self-announcement** is the simplest and oldest way of nominating. It means that a person who wants to run for a position announces his candidacy.

This method of nomination is most often used by those who have not been selected by the party as candidates, or who are dissatisfied with the choice made by the party.

In addition to self-announcement, there are also the following methods for nominating candidates:
**1. Caucus
2. Convention**

**The Caucus** involves the agreement of a group of people regarding the candidates to whom they will provide support. This method was used a lot earlier when there were no modern ways of communication and transportation. It was physically very difficult to gather members of the party in one place and ensure that everyone’s opinion about potential candidates was heard.

The disadvantage of this method of nomination is the lack of democracy. Today, this method is obsolete and is used only during some local elections in a changed, more democratic form.

**The Convention** involves a gathering of party members at different levels:

**1. Local Convention**
– nominating candidates for local elections
– selecting delegates for country convention

**2. Country Convention**
– nominating candidates for country elections
– selecting delegates for State convention

**3. State Convention**
– nominating candidates for State elections
– selecting delegates for national convention

**4. National Convention**
– nominating candidates for President and Vice-president elections

While they should provide a more democratic process than the Caucus, the Conventions were also subject to manipulation and abuse. For these reasons, a new method for nomination has been established – **direct primary.**

In order to overcome the shortcomings of the Caucus and the Convention as a method for nominating candidates for elections, a new method was introduced – **direct primary**.

Since this method involves intra party elections in which all qualified party members (in some cases all qualified voters) can vote, it provides a much greater degree of democracy and transparency than previous methods.
The fact that these elections are regulated by the laws of the State also contributes to this facts.

**Nomination by petition** is a method of nominating candidates that is used mainly at the local level. If a number of qualified voters sign the petition, the candidate may be nominated for the election.

This method is used in local elections because the candidates in those elections are often personally known to the community. Local politicians know many members of their local community personally and can count on being able to run for office through a petition.

Politicians at higher levels, which include a larger number of voters, do not have the opportunity to have personal relations with them or to introduce themselves closely to them, so they mostly become candidates based on the nominations of party delegates.