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"It can be challenging to keep up with the constant stream of news about the presidential election. Understanding relevant political terms is the first step to staying informed and comprehending the information. The New York Times News Clerk Emmarie Huetteman says, \"The challenge is understanding not only what the political lingo means, but what the terms mean in the political sphere. In order to fully understand these terms, you have to understand the context in which they're relevant to the current system.\" We asked Huetteman, who works in the Washington bureau and writes for The New York Times political blog The Caucus, to outline the most important\u2014and often most confusing\u2014 political terms to know for the upcoming election.\n\nConvention: \"Conventions are the gatherings where parties officially select a nominee for president. This year, the Republican nominating contest is dragging on a little longer than it usually does, and a lot of the candidates are saying that they're going to stay in the contest as long as possible. The convention could be more interesting this year because we don't have a clear-cut Republican nominee going into it. The Republican national convention will be in Tampa, Florida in late August, and the Democratic national convention will be in Charlotte, North Carolina in early September.\"\n\nDelegate: \"Delegates are representatives at a party's convention who vote for candidates on the state level. Their votes are awarded during the primary contests. The political parties have different systems. The Democratic Party awards them proportionally, so for example, if a candidate wins thirty percent of the vote in the primary, then the candidate gets 30 percent of the delegates at the convention. The Republicans award the candidates in varying ways state by state. This year, the Republican party is going to award delegates proportionally in Congressional districts in a lot of the states.\"\n\nEarmark: \"This is not an electoral term, but it's come up in this presidential election. It's government money set aside for specific projects, and sometimes emptions from tas or fees for specific projects. Usually, earmarks are attached to bills by lawmakers looking for money for a project back home in the state or district that they represent. Rick Santorum, in particular, has brought up earmarks. Mitt Romney used campaign ads to get back at Santorum, who had criticized earmarks, by saying that Santorum supported them while he was a senator. Earmarks are usually used to talk about government waste in the context of an election, although a lot of people argue that earmarks are a good way to get money for projects that would otherwise go unfunded.\"\n\nElectoral College: \"Electoral College is a big one. It was established by the Constitution to choose the president as a compromise between election by Congress and election by the people. When you vote for a presidential ticket, you're also voting for which electors represent you in the Electoral College. In nearly all states, all of the electors for a given state vote for the candidate who won that state's popular vote. In the 2000 election, Al Gore won the popular vote and George Bush won the Electoral College. People couldn't understand how it's possible to win the presidency without winning the popular vote. It's why you often see candidates focusing their campaigning in states with more electoral votes.\"\n\nIncumbent: \"An incumbent is the candidate currently holding office. President Obama is the incumbent in this year's presidential election. Incumbents generally have an advantage over their opponent because of simple factors such as name recognition and experience.\"\n\nPrimary vs. Caucus: \"Caucuses are gatherings of political supporters to discuss and vote for candidates, and they have fewer participants. The most well known are the Iowa caucuses. Primaries, in which voters cast ballots, more closely resemble the voting process during the general election.\"\n\nSuper PAC: \"This is a relatively new term. It is a political committee that can accept unlimited amounts of money in support of a candidate, as long as it doesn't coordinate efforts with candidates or parties. There are limitations on the amount of money that an individual can contribute directly to a candidate's campaign ($2,500). Since this is a new term, we're still defining what 'coordination with candidates' means. It's something that even political parties and people within the system are trying to figure out.\""^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.teenvogue.com/story/political-terms-to-know-presidential-election>