Cite as: 517 U. S. 186 (1996)
Opinion of Stevens, J.
tion process, and therefore properly fell within § 5's scope. A fee of $45 to cast a vote for the Party nominee is, if anything, a more onerous burden than a mere obligation to include certain public information about oneself next to one's name on a nominating petition. In dissent, Justice Harlan agreed that "the nominating petition is the functional equivalent of the political primary." Id., at 592 (opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part).
Delegate qualifications are in fact more closely tied to the voting process than practices that may cause vote dilution, whose coverage under § 5 we have repeatedly upheld. Virginia, like most States, has effectively divided its election into two stages, the first consisting of the selection of party candidates and the second being the general election itself. See United States v. Classic, 313 U. S., at 316. Exclusion from the earlier stage, as two appellants in this case experienced, does not merely curtail their voting power, but abridges their right to vote itself. To the excluded voter who cannot cast a vote for his or her candidate, it is all the same whether the party conducts its nomination by a primary or by a convention open to all party members except those kept out by the filing fee. Each is an "integral part of the election machinery." Id., at 318.
The reference to "party office" in § 14, which defines the terms "vote" and "voting" as they appear throughout the Act, reinforces this construction of § 5. Section 14 specifically recognizes that the selection of persons for "party office" is one type of action that may determine the effectiveness of a vote in the general election. Delegates to a party convention are party officers. See H. R. Rep. No. 439, 89th Cong., 1st Sess., 32 (1965) ("Thus, for example, an election of delegates to a State party convention would be covered by the act"). The phrase "votes cast with respect to candidates for public or party office" in § 14 is broad enough to encompass a variety of methods of voting beyond a formal elec-
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