View source for Urcean procuratorial primary

{{stub}}

Each of the 34 [[Urcea]]n provinces, states, and crownlands holds {{wp|primary election}}s help nominate individual candidates for the office of [[Procurator]]. This process is designed to choose the candidates that will represent their political parties in the [[Elections in Urcea|general election]]. The primary process generally developed over time. It was established [[History_of_Urcea_(1902-1955)#Mid-war_political_changes|among political changes]] in the [[Second Great War]], though a rudimentary primary system was in place between [[1903]] and [[1944]]. 

Individuals who seek the office of Procurator do not receive the official endorsement of [[Political parties in Urcea|party apparatuses]]. Instead, they must gather ballot access petitions equal to 5% of the enrolled voters of a party within an individual province, crownland, or state in order to qualify for that subdivison's procuratorial primary. The ballot access requirements must be met forty days prior to the primary being held, and oftentimes lesser known candidates will only initially gather ballot access signatures in some of the earliest provinces so as to gain enough momentum to employ petition circulators in the later provinces. 

The primaries themselves are staggered into four phases, with individual provincials, crownlands, and states agreeing to participate in phased primary by convention. Provincial and local governments run the primary elections. A province's primary election takes the form of an indirect election: instead of voters directly selecting a particular person running for Procurator, they determine the number of delegates each party's national convention will receive from their respective province. Delegates are generally awarded proportional to the population of each province and each candidate's vote share, with the formula determined both by each party and each province, and winners of individual provinces generally get a bonus share of delegates. These delegates then in turn select their party's presidential nominee. There are also small numbers of unpledged delegates employed by all major parties, which are the party chair, vice chair, and top elected official of that party in each province. The top elected official is determined by precedence, including the sitting Procurator or [[Chancellor and Temporary President]] if applicable, then to the governor if applicable, then to the legislative caucus leader of the upper house of that province's legislature. Accordingly there are a total of 102 unpledged delegates in the major parties' primary system.

Each party holds its national convention in either July or August. At the convention, the delegates selected in the primary process are responsible for choosing the party's candidate for Procurator. Those chosen in the primary are bound to their candidate for the first ballot. If a candidate has a majority of the delegates, they are chosen as nominee. If they don't, all delegates are unbound during the second and subsequent ballots, allowing any enrolled member of the party who is eligible for Procurator to be selected as candidate.

The procuratorial primary system may be opted out of by a party for decade-long stints. Left-wing parties such as the [[Social Labor Party (Urcea)|Social Labor Party]] traditionally did not employ the primary system, instead relying on vanguard-style caucuses made up of labor leaders, party officials, cultural left-wing thought leaders, and other similar types of individuals.
==Phase calendar==
{{wip}}
The procuratorial primary occurs in four phases or clusters, with provinces, crownlands, and states all being bunched in one of the four phases. The staggered phase nature of the procuratorial primary season allows candidates to concentrate their resources in each area of the country one at a time instead of campaigning in every province, state, or crownland simultaneously. In some of the less populous provinces, this allows campaigning to take place on a much more personal scale and also allows lesser-known candidates to possibly gain momentum and visibility. However, the overall results of the primary season may not be representative of the Urcea electorate as a whole as smaller provinces hold their primary in the earlier phases in order to deliberately backload the largest number of delegates, though each phase deliberately includes at least one decent sized province. That provincial procuratorial primaries must occur on one of four dates is established by an act of the [[Concilium Daoni]], but the provinces are largely free to choose which phase they participate in, and the current order is established by convention.

{| class="wikitable" 
|- style="font-weight:bold;"
! Phase
! Subdivisions
! Date
|-
| Phase 1
| {{flag|Ardthirium}}, {{flag|Ardricampus}}, {{flag|Burgundiemarch}}, {{flag|Eastglen}}, {{flag|Eastvale}}, {{flag|Gabban}}, {{flag|Hardinán}}, {{flag|Kingsvale}}, {{flag|Niallsland}}, {{flag|North Ionia}}
| First Tuesday in February
|-
| Phase 2
| {{flag|Canaery}}, {{flag|Eastglen}}, {{flag|Goldvale}}, {{flag|Halfway}}, {{flag|Lower Carolina}},  {{flag|New Audonia}}, {{flag|Northgate}}, {{flag|Sanctissimo Sacramento}}, {{flag|Tromarine}}
| First Tuesday in March
|-
| Phase 3
| {{flag|Ænglasmarch}}, {{flag|Afoncord}}, {{flag|Callan}}, {{flag|Harren}}, {{flag|Killean}}, {{flag|Roscampus}}, {{flag|Southmarch}}, {{flag|South Ionia}}, {{flag|Upper Carolina}}, {{flag|Westglen}}
| First Tuesday in April
|-
| Phase 4
| {{flag|the Cape (Urcean province)|}}, {{flag|Gassavelia}}, {{flag|North Crotona}}, {{flag|South Crotona}}, {{flag|Urceopolis}}
| First Tuesday in May
|}

[[Category:Urcean elections]]
[[Category:IXWB]]
[[Category:Politics of Urcea]]