After months of anticipation, hours upon hours of preparation and a final rush, we can finally say we're finished.
The countless scrapped ideas, botched plans and speculation are behind us. We think everyone out there will agree that Halloween was one hell of a holiday, but we're all glad it's over.
There was also this little thing called Election Day, but don't get us started on that.
Halloween had a purpose and a set of easy-to-follow rules. Dress up in a costume, eat candy and party all night. A simple step-by-step guide to the holiday would be a page long at most.
The same guide to Election Day would take volumes. Here's the truncated version.
Voters make their selection for president and file the ballot at a polling site. From there the votes are tabulated until a popular vote for each state (and also the nation) is determined.
The popular vote then determines the president.
Wait, that isn't quite right. Let's take it from the popular vote.
Each political party nominates a set of electors. Nominees from the political party that wins the popular vote cast the electoral votes for each state. The candidate who wins the majority of electoral votes becomes the next president.
That system seems fine and dandy. The trouble is that in just more than half of the states, electors are not required -- and most likely wouldn't be prosecuted -- for voting against the popular vote in their state.
Does anyone see a problem here?
Only 29 states have any sort of requirement or pledge that electors' votes match the popular vote.
There have been several instances in America's history when a candidate won the popular vote and lost the Electoral College vote.
The biggest problem with the shaky Electoral College system is that people begin to feel that they don't have a voice in presidential elections.
Voter turnout, especially among college students, has routinely dropped more quickly than Howard Dean's post-scream poll ratings. It's not all the Electoral College's fault.
Extremely rich candidates seem more distant from middle class and college voters. Watching a candidate spend $300 million on advertising, and then listening to the same person talk about fiscal conservatism is a little hard to swallow.
The United States also uses far too many different ballots and systems of voting. A unified ballot system and format would make tallying counts easier for the thousands of volunteers on Election Day.
Today's guide to voting starts with confusing ballots, stops off with millionaire candidates and ends with electors without guidelines.
The groundwork is in place to change that guide significantly: Sen. John McCain has done wonders to help curb campaign spending, and ballots are becoming more uniform each year.
Fixing the Electoral College would require a constitutional amendment, but the support for such an amendment would make it much easier to accomplish.
Tuesday, we helped write history on Election Day, and now we need to rewrite the way we elect our president.
