The phrase "a preliminary election" is correct and usable in written English.
It can be used to refer to an initial election held to determine candidates for a subsequent election or to gauge public opinion on certain issues.
Example: "The candidates for the general election will be decided in a preliminary election scheduled for next month."
Alternatives: "primary election" or "initial election".
A direct primary, which is now used in some form in all U.S. states, functions as a preliminary election whereby voters decide their party's candidates.
Mr. Flaherty had also combined forces with City Councilor Sam Yoon, a losing candidate in a preliminary election in September, to draw more support.
Boston, a smaller city by far, eschews primaries in favor of a preliminary election with the top two vote getters moving on to a general election.
Mr. Walsh finished first in a field of 12 candidates in the preliminary election in September and is now in a neck-and-neck runoff against John R. Connolly, 40, a city councilman, in the first competitive mayor's race here in three decades.
When preliminary election results indicated a resounding victory for the Georgian Dream coalition, Saakashvili, set to remain in office as president until the end of his term in 2013, conceded his party's defeat and acknowledged Ivanishvili's right to become prime minister.
When preliminary election results indicated a resounding victory for the Georgian Dream, Saakashvili, set to remain in office until the end of his second presidential term in 2013, conceded his party's defeat and acknowledged Ivanishvili's right to become prime minister.
Today: preliminary election results show that a runoff is likely in Afghanistan, Syrian regime and rebels accuse each other of a chemical weapons attack, four people killed in a militant attack on a pro-India leader in Kashmir, and thousands march to support civil unions in Peru.
In the state's first special election of 2018, Patty Schachtner, a Democrat and the St . Croix Countymedical examiner, beat Representative Adam Jarchow, a Republican member of the State Assembly, by 11 percentage points, according to preliminary election returns, decisively taking the seat in a rural western region near the Minnesota border.
However, a preliminary Federal Election Comission filing showed that some dedicated supporters would like Thiel to run for California governor, despite the billionaire's insistence that he does not want the position.
We are all Iraqi". But the preliminary election results, which have trickled out through a series of haphazard leaks and news conferences and remain disputed by all parties, show a nation starkly fragmented into ethnic and religious cantons with different aims and visions.
According to preliminary election results, Harris won the Senate race in a landslide -- beating Sanchez by 25 percentage points and winning 56 of California's 58 counties, including Sanchez's home county of Orange.
