Topic summary
Primaries
Extracted from the Wikipedia article Primary election.
Non-partisan
Primaries can be used in nonpartisan elections to reduce the set of candidates that go on to the general election (qualifying primary). (In the U.S., many city, county and school board elections are non-partisan, although often the political affiliations of candidates are commonly known.) In some states and localities, candidates receiving more than 50% of the vote in the primary are automatically elected, without having to run again in the general election. In other states, the primary can narrow the number of candidates advancing to the general election to the top two, while in other states and localities, twice as many candidates as can win in the general election may advance from the primary.