A candidate is the prospective recipient of an award or honor or a person seeking or being considered for some kind of position; for example:

• to be elected to an office — in this case a candidate selection procedure occurs.
• to receive membership in a group

"Nomination" is part of the process of selecting a candidate for either election to an office, or the bestowing of an honor or award. "Presumptive nominee" is a term used when a person or organization believes that the nomination in inevitable. The act of being a candidate in a race is called a "candidacy."

"Candidate" is a derivative of the Latin "candida" (white). In Ancient Rome, people running for political office would usually wear togas chalked and bleached to be bright white at speeches, debates, conventions, and other public functions.

Candidates in elections

In the context of elections for public office in a representational partisan democracy, a candidate who has been selected by a political party is normally said to be the nominee of that party. The party's selection (that is, the nomination) is typically accomplished either based on one or more primary elections according to the rules of the party and any applicable election laws.

Candidates are either incumbents, if they are already serving in the office for which they are seeking re-election, challengers, if they are seeking to unseat an incumbent, or are simply candidates for an open seat, an elective office for which no incumbent is seeking re-election.

In the context of elections for public office in a direct democracy, a candidate can be nominated by any eligible person -- and if parliamentary procedures are used, the nomination has to be seconded, i.e., receive agreement from a second person.

In some non-partisan representative systems (e.g., administrative elections of the Bahá'í Faith), no nominations (or campaigning, electioneering, etc.) take place at all, with voters free to choose any person at the time of voting--with some possible exceptions such as through a minimum age requirement--in the jurisdiction. In such cases, it is not required (or even possible) that the members of the electorate be familiar with all of the eligible persons in their area, though such systems may involve indirect elections at larger geographic levels to ensure that some first-hand familiarity among potential electees can exist at these levels (i.e., among the elected delegates).

A person may also be directly nominated for a post without having to be elected.

Presumed advantages of nominations

• Although a nominee need not have sought appointment himself or herself (presumably the existence of a system of nominating others implies that a person desiring the position would not (or could not) necessarily seek out a post themselves), nominations frequently occur in the context of elections with the active awareness of the nominee. An awareness beforehand of the willingness of the would-be candidate to accept the post might be seen as at least a time-saving advantage and an indicator of their confidence in being able to handle the job (if not a minimal indicator in their competence to handle the job).
• Having a narrowed down set of choices would allow people to study the positions, character, etc. of the nominated choices before making their choice.
• In typically two-party systems, the competitive process is seen to promote moderate candidates (as they are believed to be able to have the best chance to capture the vote for their party and have a broader appeal across the voting spectrum).