Urcean procuratorial primary

Each of the 34 Urcean provinces, states, and crownlands holds primary elections 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 general election.

The primary process generally developed over time. It was established among political changes in the Second Great War, though a rudimentary primary system was in place between 1903 and 1944. These primaries 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.

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 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

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.

Phase	Subdivisions	Date
Phase 1	Ardthirium, Ardricampus, Burgundiemarch, Eastglen, Eastvale, Gabban, Hardinán, Kingsvale, Niallsland, North Ionia	First Tuesday in February
Phase 2	Canaery, Eastglen, Goldvale, Halfway, Lower Carolina, New Audonia, Northgate, Sanctissimo Sacramento, Tromarine	First Tuesday in March
Phase 3	Ænglasmarch, Afoncord, Callan, Harren, Killean, Roscampus, Southmarch, South Ionia, Upper Carolina, Westglen	First Tuesday in April
Phase 4	the Cape (Urcean province), Gassavelia, North Crotona, South Crotona, Urceopolis	First Tuesday in May