Thanks for that, Shellie
I'm still a bit confused but I'm wondering if its similar to the way we do it in the UK.
We are divided into counties (I would think the whole of the UK could fit into one of your states
). Each county - depending on its size - is likely to be sub-divided by north, south, east and west. Each will have parliamentary candidates - one for each of the political parties that puts up a candidate. (We do have some jokers, like one headed by Screaming Lord Sutch
)
People go out and vote for their candidate and it is the one who has the most votes in that particular constituency who wins his/her seat in parliament. The party that wins the most counties (seats) becomes the one who forms a government. Whoever gets the second highest number of seats becomes the opposition. It isn't particularly fair because it doesn't represent the national share of the vote. One party - the third (Liberal Democrats) has been calling for proportional representation for years as it is the fairest way, reflecting the national share of the vote.
If that doesn't make sense, well, it's 3.30am now