HISTORY OF THE DIRECT PRIMARY IN THE 
STATE OF MAINE 
I 
THE NOMINATING SYSTEM PRIOR TO 1911 
The adoption of the direct primary is the latest step in a 
recent movement to regulate by law the nomination of candi- 
dates for office in the state of Maine. Political parties for 
seventy-one years after Maine became a state enjoyed com- 
plete freedom in “slate-making”. During the succeeding 
thirty-four years the legislature, from time to time, enacted 
laws each of which regulated in increasing detail the nominat- 
ing process. 
The first step in the development of legal regulation of nomi- 
nations was the enactment in 1891 of a law which gave a legal 
status to the nominating convention and regulated its pro- 
cedure.^ The act of the legislature gave the political party 
convention, or caucus, the authority to do under the law what 
it had been doing previously outside of the law. The right 
to make nominations for public office was granted to delegate 
conventions representing a political party which had “polled 
at least one per cent of the entire vote cast . . . for gover- 
nor” at the election next preceding.- Furthermore, it provided 
that a certificate of nomination should be signed and sworn to 
by the presiding officer or by the secretary of the convention or 
caucus,^ and filed with the secretary of state or, in case of a 
city election, with the city clerk.^ Such certificate should 
contain the name of the candidate, the office for which he was 
nominated, the political party which he represented, and his 
place of residence.^ The successful candidate was required to 
file with the certificate, in writing, his consent to accept the 
^ Maine, Acts and Resolves, 1891, chap, cii, 
2 Ihid., sec. 2. 
® Ibid., sec. 3. 
^ Ibid., sec. 6. 
® Ibid., sec. 5. 
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