It was developed by aerospace engineer and political scientist Thomas Gangale in 2003 in response to the trend toward front-loading in recent primary campaigns and the influence wielded by Iowa and New Hampshire, which traditionally hold their nominating events before any other state.
The territories of American Samoa, Guam, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands, which do not hold electoral votes but do send delegates to nominating conventions, are counted as holding one electoral vote each, as would the District of Columbia.
As a result, the early campaign would feature contests in several small states or a few larger ones, becoming more and more demanding as time went by.
[1] In response to criticism that the random selection system of the American Plan could lead to high travel costs for candidates, John Nichols claims these costs are minimal compared to the costs of running full TV, radio, print and online media campaigns in several states simultaneously, as would happen under the large regional plans.
[2] The plan is supported by: The American Plan was the only systematic reform cited in the December 2005 Report of the Commission on Presidential Nomination Timing and Scheduling[8] to Democratic National Committee chairman Howard Dean: "In considering the options for 2012 the Commission encourages the Party to think boldly, including for example, [Rules and Bylaws Committee] consideration of the proposal known as the American Plan which would spread the calendar of contests across ten intervals of time and randomly select the order of the states from one presidential election cycle to the next."