With the primary elections beginning and with Virginia’s being on March 5th, it’s important to take a look at who the candidates are and how the primaries work. For the independent or third-party candidates there are Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Cornel West, and Jill Stein. In the democratic party the candidates are Joe Biden, Dean Phillips, and Marianne Williamson. As for the republican candidates there’s Donald Trump, Nikki Haley, and Ryan Binkley. Student, Dahlia Berzingi (12), states that she’s aware of who the candidates are and the fact that each state has different requirements for who can be on the ballot saying, “I’m in gov class.” So, for some students who aren’t in this class, they may not be aware of the different requirements per state. Not only this but in some states a person can only vote within the party that they are registered for. So, if you’re a registered republican and you want to vote outside of that party, you’re not allowed to, you can only vote for one of the republican candidates.
To figure out a more in-depth explanation of the way the primaries work, Mrs. Sprenger (VA/US Historyc, ADV World History II, and US Governmentc Teacher) explained the history of the primary elections. Before the primary elections came to exist, candidates were chosen by groups in congress called caucuses, by party. Then around the time of Andrew Jackson’s presidency, nominating conventions were created and these took over for the caucuses. Finally, Americans adopted a more democratic way of choosing these candidates, this is when primary elections came into play. Sprenger also said that each party determines the ballot of the primary elections. Additionally, when the general election comes around, the states control who can be on the ballot. She said this is why “the people who have the most trouble getting on the ballot are third party candidates, they have to produce enough signatures to demonstrate they’re a viable candidate.” For example, in Virginia, each candidate is required to have 5,000 signatures, fixed (200 signatures from each congressional district), and no filing fee (some states require candidates to pay a filing fee of up to $50,000.) As you can see, this might make it difficult for a candidate that isn’t well-known or doesn’t have a lot of financial resources to get on the ballot.