The role of projectors associated with Poisson brackets of constrained
Hamiltonian systems is analyzed. Projectors act in two instances in a bracket:
in the explicit dependence on the variables and in the computation of the
functional derivatives. The role of these projectors is investigated by using
Dirac's theory of constrained Hamiltonian systems. Results are illustrated by
three examples taken from plasma physics: magnetohydrodynamics, the
Vlasov-Maxwell system, and the linear two-species Vlasov system with
quasineutrality