American presidential election system demystified: a primer as harvested from Wikipedia

A refresher to the US presidential election system for the newbies:

The US parliament is called the Congress (located in Capitol Hill in DC). It has two houses: house of representatives (435 reps, chosen to reflect the public opinion, number from a state is proportional to the population of the state) and the senate (100 senators, 2 members elected from each state, this number is fixed and irrespective of the population of the state, they reflect the state gov's opinion). The senate can try presidential impeachment cases and the house of reps can also initiate impeachment process (only two presidents were impeached by the Congress: Andrew Johnson in 1868 and Bill Clinton in 1998). Only one president, Richard Nixon, resigned before being impeached in the history of the USA ever.

Before the actual presidential elections are held, the primaries (one type of election) are held in many states. The states are chosen randomly for primaries. Primaries results indicate which candidate should be nominated by the party for the presidential candidate in the national convention (say, Primaries will decide whom the Democratic party will promote as the presidential candidate: Hillary or Obama ?). Once the nomination is done, the nation goes for polling. Individuals cast their votes and one of the candidates belonging to a particular party receives the most vote in that state. Each state has a number of electoral votes (again roughly proportional to the population) which constitute the electoral college (see below how the electors in the electoral college are elected). A party or a candidate belonging to that party gets all of the state's electoral votes if it has a clear majority from the people's polls. The electors of the electoral college now cast their votes to elect the president. "The presidential ballot is actually voting "for the electors of a candidate" meaning that the voter is not actually voting for the candidate, but endorsing members of the Electoral College who will, in turn, directly elect the President".

"The current process is an indirect election. Constitutionally, the election is by United States Electoral College electors, who are chosen by methods each state individually establishes". "The presidential election occurs quadrennially. The most recent election occurred on November 2, 2004. The next election is scheduled for November 4, 2008. Elections are held on Election Day—the Tuesday after the first Monday in November of every fourth year". "The elections are conducted by the various statesfederal government" . ..."it appears virtually certain that the 2008 election will mark the first time since John F. Kennedy in the 1960 election that a sitting Senator will be elected President of the United States".


"Electors in the electoral college are chosen by way of elections in each state, and Washington, D.C., held on Election Day (same day of presidential election). The number of electoral votes of each state is the sum of its number of U.S. Senators (always two) and its U.S. Representatives to which that state is entitled."

.."Electoral college votes for 2008 = 538. The winning candidate needs 270 electoral votes (out of 538 = 435 (house of reps) + 100 (senators, 2 each for 50 states) + 3 other guys, electoral votes)".

"The nature of the process and its complication have been critiqued, with its detractors proposing several alternative methods of electing the president. This issue was revisited following the Presidential Election of 2000 when Democratic candidate Al Gore received the plurality of the national vote, but failed to win the majority of the Electoral College. Advocates of the current system have similarly set forth arguments for its advantages."

See also:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/President_of_the_United_States
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USA_presidential_election
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Civil_War