<P> In recent conventions, routine business such as examining the credentials of delegations, ratifying rules and procedures, election of convention officers, and adoption of the platform usually take up the business of the first two days of the convention . Balloting was usually held on the third day, with the nomination and acceptance made on the last day, but even some of these traditions have fallen away in 21st century conventions . The only constant is that the convention ends with the nominee's acceptance speech . </P> <P> Each convention produces a statement of principles known as its platform, containing goals and proposals known as planks . Relatively little of a party platform is even proposed as public policy . Much of the language is generic, while other sections are narrowly written to appeal to factions or interest groups within the party . Unlike electoral manifestos in many European countries, the platform is not binding on either the party or the candidate . </P> <P> Because it is ideological rather than pragmatic, however, the platform is sometimes itself politicized . For example, defenders of abortion rights lobbied heavily to remove the Human Life Amendment plank from the 1996 Republican National Convention platform, a move fiercely resisted by conservatives despite the fact that no such amendment had ever come up for debate . </P> <P> Since the 1970s, voting has for the most part been perfunctory; the selection of the major parties' nominees have rarely been in doubt, so a single ballot has always been sufficient . Each delegation announces its vote tallies, usually accompanied with some boosterism of their state or territory . The delegation may pass, nominally to retally their delegates' preferences, but often to allow a different delegation to give the leading candidate the honor of casting the majority - making vote . </P>

Who attends each partys national convention which is held in a presidential election year