Tonight, watching the returns from Super Tuesday’s presidential primary elections, in which 24 of the 50 states of the Union voted, you find yourself thinking, “Wonder how a foreigner sees all this?”

He would be totally at sea. Absolutely lost.

So, let’s see if we can make a little sense of it.

One: the United States of America is a family made up of 50 states. Imagine having a family with 50 children, each different from the others, some not looking like anyone you know, and each one a strong personality and priding itself on its eccentricities.

America is not a monolithic single-entity, but is divided and subdivided into sections and regions. That is, this country is not like an apple–cut it open and it’s pretty much the same throughout–but is more like an orange, composed of sections, with each one a little different from the others.

Using the orange analogy, imagine cutting one open and pulling out the sections to find that one slice is a lemon, one a navel orange, one slice a tangerine, another grapefruit, and another a lime. They’re all members of the citrus family, but that’s where the similarities end.

That is the United States of America. Emphasis on “states.” We were states before we were united, and we have retained a lot of the characteristics of our independency.

Okay, now, second point: the political parties run their primaries however they please. The federal government has nothing to do with it. That’s completely surprising to outsiders. Here we are the last remaining superpower nation on earth and in choosing the next leader of the free world, our system is in the hands of the political parties in each state which are run by people we don’t know. And we meekly go along with it.

That’s why in this presidential primary, some states met in caucus to make their selections–remember Iowa in early January–while others asked the entire electorate to traipse to the polls and vote, as in New Hampshire in February. Today, Republicans in West Virginia met in caucus and announced this morning that Mike Huckabee received all 8 delegates for their party’s nomination.

Still on point two. States do not have to do things alike. Some states will award all the electoral votes to the person who wins their state’s primary, and the runners-up are left out in the cold. Other states will give so many votes to the winner based on the percentage he polled, so many to the runnerup, again based on his or her votes, and so on.

Confused? You’re not alone. I daresay the average citizen on the street does not have a clue how all this works. They read the paper and when it says, “Go to the polls Saturday,” they go. Well, 50 percent of us do, but that’s another story.

Third: then, this summer, after the caucuses and primaries have done their thing, delegates will gather in a large city for the Republican National Convention and in another city for the Democratic National Convention. There, delegates will either decide at that time or ratify the decision the voters have already made as to who their candidate for president will be.

At this point, the Federal government gets involved. Bodyguards are assigned to the nominees for president and vice-president, to accompany them through the election in early November. The election on the first Tuesday of November will be a federal election, funded, overseen, and safeguarded (presumably) by the national government. (In order for a third-party candidate to get federal funding and protection, that party must have polled a sufficiently high percentage in the previous presidential election. So, start-up parties are on their own.)

Question: how many candidates can we have running for the presidency in November? Answer: there’s no limit. In fact, the ballot will have a long list of names, most of them representing political parties most Americans have never heard of: the Green Party, the Socialist Party, the Reform Party, and various independents.

For over a hundred years, however, the American people have made their choice for president among the candidates from either the Democrats or Republicans. They don’t have to; they seem to want to.

Fourth, and the best: Then, after the November election, the popular vote has nothing to do with the outcome. Say what?

Again, bear in mind that this is a nation of 50 states, not, as some erroneously think and seem to want, one huge state that stretches from Hawaii to Maine.

According to Article II of the U.S. Constitution, each state has so many electoral votes, based on the numbers of members of Congress from that state. The winner of that state’s election, gets those votes. So, it’s not only possible to win the electoral votes while losing the popular vote, it happened in 2000 when George Bush squeaked by Al Gore.

Originally, when our founding fathers put that provision into the constitution, the thinking was that this country was so huge and the population so scattered, voters might not know the candidates for the presidency, but they would know people from their home state. So, the constitution provides that when you cast a vote for president in the November election, you are actually voting–not for the presidential candidate–but for the slate of electors pledged to that person.

It’s only a formality, but some weeks after the November election, when we’ve grown accustomed to hearing that Obama or McCain or whoever is the president-elect, you will read a small item in the paper announcing that the electoral college met in Washington and made it official. As though anyone was wondering.

Antiquated system? Sure. Unfair? Maybe a little.

Every four years, a hue and cry goes up from millions of Americans that it’s time to do away with this obsolete system. It seems unfair on the surface, to be sure, and nothing seems more reasonable than for the candidate who gets the most votes to be sworn into office. The protestors will want to amend the constitution, which is a laborious and time-consuming process, but has happened numerous times over the last 232 years.

Here’s why that ain’t going to happen and why it shouldn’t happen.

Right now, when you have an election, the presidential candidates visit as many states as they can get to. However, if you erase the borders between the states (i.e., for the election), you will have one massive electoral district which is the USA. And that means, the tiny states and poorly populated areas can forget about ever seeing a presidential candidate again. The only thing that matters is pullling the largest number of votes. For that, candidates would converge on the cities where the greatest population lives. Rural America would never see another presidential candidate, nor would most small states.

Since amending the consitution requires not only a two-thirds vote of both houses of Congress, but also by two-thirds of the state legislatures from across the country. My encyclopedia is seriously out of date (I’m embarrassed to admit its age), but it says over 6,900 amendments to the constitution have been proposed. Of that number, only 31 have been passed by Congress and submitted to the states. Of those, only 26 were passed. Then the encyclopedia makes this statement: “The United State Constitution is harder to amend than any other constitution in history.” Believe it.

My friend, Pastor Jim Duggan of Georgia, said in his email newsletter this week that Christians should stop looking to the government to bring in the Millennium and to solve all our ills. He makes a good point, that no matter who the president is, some things about this country will go on pretty much as before. I replied to Jim, however, that the most important act of a sitting president may well be the appointment of justices to the Supreme Court. For decades to come, the men and women who make up that body will issue decisions and interpretations of law that will affect the quality of life–and for some, whether there will even be life at all–and the character of America.

We must not take this or any election lightly. Citizenship in America is a precious possession, not unlike the talents our Lord spoke of in Matthew 25. Let us be faithful with what has been entrusted to us. People all over this planet would make any sacrifice and pay any price, to live in your home and enjoy the freedoms you take for granted.

God, bless America.