US President is one of the most powerful persons of the world.So its election process has to be such that it reflects that.And it really reflects!
US President is elected by an electoral college of 538 Presedential Electors.These electors are elected by the people of United States on the “election day”.The no. of electoral votes(and therefore electors) of a state is equal to the sum of number of US Senators (always two) and US Representatives of that state; District of Columbia currently has 3 votes(equal to number of votes it would have if it had senators and representatives).
On the election day, people vote for a slate of pre selected candidates for Presedential elector representing various candidates for President. Most states follow a system designed to make voters think that they are voting for actual candidates of Pesident.In most states the Presidential candidate recieving the simple majority of votes gets all the Electors of that state.Only Maine and Nebraska follow a system in which electoral vote of the state can be split.
After 41 days of election day, electors meet to cast there vote for President.Electors first cast the ballot for President and then for Vice-President. In most cases the electors cast the vote in favour of the candidate for which they where elected.But in very rare case an elector may abstain from voting or even vote for the other side.Every state has laws dealing with such kind of situation. One month after the casting of electoral votes, the US Congress meet to declare the new President.
Who can run for Presidency?
Anyone who is above 35 years old and living in US for more than14 years.For running for Presidency there are various methods.Most simple being filing nomination as independent! Other simpler ones include somehow get nomination from dozens of small parties lining the US political scene like Green Party, Constitution Party etc. For getting nominated from the big daddies of US politcs the Republic party and the Democratic Party a long difficult path has to be taken!This path is to win the respective primaries of both parties.
Both major political parties of US, democratic and republican nominate candidates to run in primaries(and caucuses). These primaries are held at different times in different states depending on state rules and party. Usually it is said that the primary held early are the most important as they set the tone for the rest of the campaign for the candidates. Thats the reason why Iowa and New Hampshire primaries, traditionally held earliest, are considered very important even though they are small states hence having few delegates. To reduce this kind of arbitrage increasingly more and more primaries are held on the same day. The most recent being the 'Super Tuesday' on 5th Feb when primaries for more than 20 states took place.
A person can vote in only a single party's primary.The franchise for voting in a primary depends on state regulations. Some have what is called “closed primary” in which only those people can vote in a party's primary who are registered with that party. Some follow “semi closed” system in which voters who are unregistered with any party can choose to vote a party's primary. In an “open primary” any voter can vote in any party's primary.
Democratic party follows the system of proportional representation in which winner doesn't get all the delegates of the state but gets in proportion of the votes he/she gets subject to minimum threshold of 15% votes. The system of Republican party vary from state to state with most following the winner take all strategy.
