Cousins & Young Delegates

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In the 1972 Illinois Democratic Primary, voters were required to vote for Illinois delegates, rather than for candidates. The delegates would then vote based on their constituents' preferences. However, many argued that this system (as well as influence on the part of Chicago Mayor Richard Daley who ran the Chicago political machine) did create a diverse selection of delegates. The 1972 Democratic Convention ended in controversy when delegates who had elected to support Senator George McGovern for the presidency were denied a vote. This was due to more traditional members of the party feeling that McGovern, who ran his grassroots campaign on a platform of ending the Vietnam War, did not represent the spirit of the Democratic Party. This eventually ended in the Supreme Court case of Cousins v. Wigoda, in which the Court ruled that the party had the right to refuse delegates on the grounds of the Right to Political Association.