CC,

I'll try to explain. The process we're going through right now is our way of picking the presidential candidates for the two major political parties (Republicans and Democrats). The candidates are picked through a voting process at each party convention (in late summer/early fall). The process we're going through now is the process of picking the delegates to the convention.

Most Americans, including myself, don't fully understand the process for a very good reason. Each party in each state has it's own specific rules for how the delegates to the conventions are selected, so there are over 100 different sets of rules in action here. But basically, parties in each state typically have either a caucus or a primary to allocate delegates.

Primaries involve traditional voting. Some states/parties allocate all the delegates to the candidate that won the most votes in a winner-take-all scheme. The Republicans do more of this. In other state/party schemes, there is a proportional allocation of delegates.

Caucuses are like "town meetings" to pick delegates, and only a small number of states actually hold them, so most Americans have never participated in one. Here's a good description of what a caucus is like from an Iowa newspaper:

http://www.desmoinesregister.com/app...EWS09/70523032

And to complicate things even further, in addition to these popularly chosen delegates, there are also super delegates, who can vote whichever way they please at the convention. These are typically party leaders & elected officials.

Anyway, that should be enough to help you understand why all of us are somewhat fuzzy on how exactly it all works...