system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
ELI5: Why do people need to vote if only the delegates' votes matter in the end?

I'm not exactly sure of how the election process works, but I hear everywhere that the votes of delegates matter in the end and not the people.
gpt
Primaries are run by the parties, not by any formal government process. They are used to determine the best candidates to elect to run for their party in the general election. There's no legal requirement to do it this way and many people run in the general election who never went through a primary.

It's worth noting that the American system for electing a president is not a direct vote either. The system is a representative system when a smaller body of people vote as representative of the broader populace. That's the electoral college. You directly vote for congress, indirectly vote for the president, and representatively appoint Supreme Court justices via the President. It's all intentionally different.