Primary
People vote by secret ballot, with the voting overseen by state governments. There are two types of primaries: closed elections, in which people can only vote for the party they are registered with, and open primaries, in which people can vote for any party they want, but can still only vote for one party. These elections are designed to allocate state delegates for each candidate for eventual nomination at the convention; some are winner-take-all, some are proportional.