McGovern–Fraser Commission

[1][2] McGovern, who resigned from the commission in 1971 in order to run for president, won the first nomination decided under the new rules in 1972, but lost the general election to Richard Nixon.

The events at and around the Democratic national convention of 1968 left the party in disarray, unable to support its nominee and divided over matters of both substance and procedure.

[1][4] Its initial mandate was to examine current rules and make recommendations designed to broaden participation in the nominating process;[4] later, as the commission evolved, it sought specifically to enable better representation among convention delegates of minorities, women, and young people – groups that had previously been underrepresented.

The report attempted to bring uniformity to the delegate selection process and to give greater influence to those in the past that had a marginal voice, mainly women, blacks and young people (defined as those under 30).

Specifically, the states were henceforth to forbid proxy voting; forbid the use of the unit rule and related practices such as instructing delegations; require a quorum of not less than 40 percent at all party committee meetings; remove all mandatory assessments of delegates and limit mandatory participation fees to no more than $10; ensure that party meetings in non rural areas were held on uniform dates, at uniform times and in places of easy access; ensure adequate public notice of all party meetings concerned with delegate selection.

[10] An unforeseen result of these rules was that many states complied by holding primary elections to select convention delegates.

[11] One of the unintended consequences of McGovern-Fraser reforms was an enormous surge in the number of state party presidential primaries.

[13] Beyond the scholarly debates surrounding the direct primary, political parties and their operatives have voiced pragmatic concerns regarding the types of candidates that primaries tend to favor, suggesting that they often produce ideologically extreme candidates who are not always attractive to more moderate, general election voters.

Some scholars conclude that primary voters are demographically unrepresentative of the larger partisan electorate, while others find fewer differences.