This isn't a question exactly about the right or the propriety of people of faith bringing their beliefs to bear on their participation in the electoral process, but about people pledged to leadership in their own religious communities also seeking/achieving positions of leadership in our democratic government. My hunch is that the whole separation of church and state thing has made clergy reluctant to seek office and voters reluctant to vote for them when they do. But I'd be interested to read about the history of actual cases of clergy candidates.

Both and neither, apparently -- turns out (if this source is to be trusted), it's WTA on a congressional district basis, with a handful of bonus delegates pledged WTA to the overall winner of the state popular vote. C'mon, newspeople -- is that so hard to explain? Especially with all your yammering about the significance of delegate counts?

But maybe that's just because I want to imagine that my vote actually made a difference, in spite of my rudimentary understanding of statistics and fear of actually being partially responsible for whatever leader we get stuck with. I know my ballot hasn't been counted yet, since it's had to make a detour through the County Clerk's office to verify that I am, in fact, a registered voter in this county. Why they would send me a voter registration card without actually adding me to the rolls is a mystery to me, but California seems to have a pretty good provisional ballot system, so I'm trying not to freak out about disenfranchisement. They even gave me a tracking number for my particular ballot, so I can call in a few weeks and find out whether I really have cause to throw a royal fit about government incompetence. But I probably won't care by then.