Well it has been 4 years and voters in the USA are electing their next President.
Barack Obama and Mitt Romney look set to go head-to-head as they tie in the most recent polls.
Something you will be hearing a lot of is the phrase "Electoral College".
No - it"s not a process and it is not a place.
What does it all mean?
It is seen as a compromise between election of the President by a vote in the US Congress and election of the US President by a popular vote by citizens.
The Electoral College process consists of the selection of the electors, the meeting of the electors where they vote for President and Vice-President, and the counting of the electoral votes by the Congress.
The College has a total of 538 electors.
A majority of 270 electoral votes is required to elect the President.
Once any candidate reaches this threshold number they have effectively (barring any legal complications) won the election and are then referred to as "President Elect".
Each state has a certain number of college votes - a breakdown is below:
Watch a video explainer from the US National Archives:
Swing states
This is where the numbers are important as there are several ‘swings states which could vote for either candidate.
These states – also referred to as ‘tossup states’ – are Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Ohio, and Virginia.
These 8 states hold only 100 electoral votes between them – but could make all the difference when it comes to crunch time at the ballot box.
Whoever it will be will take the Oath of Office January 20th 2013.
