With the start of the Republican Convention and the issues circulating concerning the Democratic Convention, the Task Force on Institutional Reforms to Combat Political Extremism—a group of political scientists, law professors, and others with expertise concerning the institutional structure of politics—is releasing this report on the presidential nominations process. This report includes a history of how the nominations process has evolved and possible suggestions for reforms. It also discusses the nature and history of open and brokered conventions. The report is available here, at the Ohio State University’s Moritz College of Law website.

Task Force Members who participated in producing this report include John Fortier (American Enterprise Institute), Elaine Kamarck (Brookings), Hans Noel (Georgetown University), Frances Lee (Princeton University), Richard Pildes (New York University), Didi Kuo (Stanford).

The Task Force considered a range of reform proposals that have been offered to help mitigate some of the extremism in our politics and political culture. The Task Force is designed to explore the best state of empirical knowledge on this topic. The proposals considered include reforms to the primary-election process; changes to the voting rules we use; campaign finance issues; changes to the presidential primary debate process; and possible changes to the forms of political representation. The Task Force’s report on all these issues will be released as a book in the coming months. A full list of all Task Force members will accompany the publication of the complete book.