=State Party Organization.=—Next come the state organizations. The party organization in the states consists of a state central committee and a state convention. [Sidenote: The state committee.] The members of the state committee are sometimes elected by the voters in the various congressional or state senatorial districts; sometimes they are named by the county conventions, and occasionally they are chosen by the state convention. The committee’s functions are to issue the call for conventions (or in some states for primaries), to raise and spend the campaign funds in state elections, to arrange the plans for the state campaign, and to supervise so far as practicable the work of the local committees. [Sidenote: The state convention.] The state convention is made up of a large body of delegates who are directly elected by the party voters or chosen by the district or county conventions. It meets a short time prior to each state election and one of its chief duties is to prepare the party’s platform.[54] Each political party holds its own convention. [Sidenote: The national convention.] =National Party Organization.=—In the early years of the Republic, candidates for the presidency were nominated by congressional caucuses, that is, by meetings of the party’s representatives in Congress. But this method was discarded about 1824 and in due course national party conventions were called to make these nominations. At present these national conventions meet every four years, during the summer preceding the presidential election. Republicans, Democrats, Prohibitionists, and Socialists all hold their own conventions. In the case of the two leading parties the conventions are made up of delegates from every state and territory, these delegates being directly chosen at primaries or named by the state conventions. The national conventions choose the candidates for the presidency and the vice presidency. They also frame the party platforms, this work being done through committees. [Sidenote: The national committee.] The chief permanent organ of each party is a national committee made up of one member from each state, who is either chosen by the voters at the primary election or selected by the delegates from the state to the national convention. The national committee chooses its own chairman, who has general charge of the party’s interests in the campaign; but in making its choice the national committee usually defers to the wishes of the party’s presidential candidate.