One cool thing about being a journalist is someone in our business is always trying to explain things, kind of so we get it through our thick heads (so to speak) and can sound knowledgeable about important stuff.

So here’s a link to the Radio Television Digital News Association’s primer on the Electoral College, written by Al Tompkins at the Poynter Institute, a journalism think tank of sorts. 

“So why do we have this system and how does it work?” Al writes. “Permit me to go back a couple of hundred years. Stay with me, this won’t take long.”

You might want to brush up on it today. This is expected to be a tight presidential race, of course, so the Electoral College will very likely be water-cooler chatter by tomorrow.