(1) At the regular primary held on the forty-fifth day before the first Monday in June of the presidential year, each voter is given an opportunity to express his preference for one candidate for the office of President and one for that of Vice President, either by writing the names or by making crosses before the printed names on the ballot.
(2) The names of candidates for the two offices are placed on the ballot without their consent, if necessary, by petitions filed by their supporters, just as in the case of candidates for governor and United States Senator.
(3) The committee or organization which places a presidential aspirant on the primary ballot is provided, on payment therefor, four pages in the campaign book issued by the state, and electors who oppose or approve of any such aspirant for nomination are likewise given space in the campaign book.
(4) Delegates to national conventions and presidential electors must be nominated at large at the primary.
(5) Every delegate is paid his expenses to the national convention; in no case, however, more than $200.
(6) Every delegate must take an oath to the effect that he will "to the best of his judgment and ability faithfully carry out the wishes of his political party as expressed by its voters at the time of his election."
The initial move of Oregon to secure a preferential vote on candidates and the instruction of delegates was followed in 1911 by New Jersey, Nebraska, California, North Dakota, and Wisconsin, and in 1912 by Massachusetts, Illinois, and Maryland.
The other presidential primary laws show some variations on the Oregon plan although they agree in affording the voter an opportunity to express his preference. Nebraska, for example, refused to disregard the Republican system of district representation, and provided that "four delegates shall be elected by the voters of the state at large; the remainder of the delegates shall be equally divided between the various congressional districts in the state and district delegates shall be elected by the voters of the various congressional districts in the state." Massachusetts follows Nebraska in this rule, but California prefers the Oregon plan of election at large. It was this provision in the law of California that caused the controversy over the seating of two district delegates at Chicago in June, 1912. Although Mr. Roosevelt carried the state, one of the districts went for Mr. Taft, and the convention seated the delegates from this district, on the ground that the rules of the party override a state statute.
The Illinois law does not attempt to bind the delegates to a strict observance of the results of the primary. On the contrary it expressly states "that the vote for President of the United States as herein provided for shall be for the sole purpose of securing an expression of the sentiment and will of the party voters with respect to the candidate for nomination for said office, and the vote of the state at large shall be taken and considered as advisory to the delegates and alternates at large to the national conventions of the respective political parties; and the vote of the respective congressional districts shall be taken and considered as advisory to the delegates and alternates of the said congressional districts to the national convention of the respective political parties."