The process of choosing candidates formally began on January 3, with the completion of the Iowa Caucus.
Since then, Americans witnessed one of the most intense presidential campaigns in its history by pre-candidates and candidates for the White House.
The BBC produced a series of questions to help you better understand how the elections work and the importance of them.
When is the election and how it is done?
The 44th U.S. President will be elected on Nov. 4. At the same time, there will be elections to renew the full House of Representatives and one third of the Senate.
However, in several states, voters have the opportunity to vote early. By the end of October, about 15 million of the approximately 213 million voters registered in the United States had already voted.
As regard to how to vote, the U.S. adopted a very decentralized system.
In the United States, each county can decide how voting is done. There are those who choose to use paper ballots while others do electronic voting. Some allow early voting, others do not allow early voting. According to analysts, the variety makes the American system more vulnerable to problems like those recorded in the elections of 2000 in Florida.
Who competes?
The Illinois state senator, Democrat Barack Obama may be the first black American to assume the presidency. He has an unusual family history: Obama was born in Hawaii, his mother was from the state of Kansas and his father from Kenya. He also spent part of his childhood in Indonesia.
Obama won a tough battle with Senator Hillary Clinton by an indication of the party, and only managed to secure the nomination in June (usually, the candidate of a party is set months before). During the campaign, he faced accusations of links with controversial people and was criticized as being too inexperienced to assume the presidency, especially in the area of foreign policy. Perhaps to balance this, he invited veteran senator Joe Biden, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations, to be his running mate.
The Republican, John McCain, is an Arizona state senator. He is praised for its military past. As a pilot in the Vietnam War, his plane was shot down in 1967 and he was taken captive. McCain refused to be released before other prisoners of war and remained imprisoned for five years - two of them in solitary confinement.
In the campaign, McCain hastried distancing himself from unpopular George W. Bush. If elected, he will be the oldest person to assume the presidency, at 72 on Jan. 20. He chose Alaska Governor, Sarah palin, as his vice president. She was not well known by the rest of the country before accepting the invitation tby McCain. Palin, like Obama, is criticized for her lack of experience.
In addition to Obama and McCain, several other minor candidates are competing for the White House with no real chance of victory. Many of them only managed to register in some states.
The best known of them is Ralph Nader, a champion of consumer rights whom many Democrats credit the defeat of Al Gore to Republican George W. Bush in the controversial election of 2000. At the time, Ralph was accused of having "stolen" voters that, without him in the match, could have voted for Gore and have guaranteed him the victory.
What party has a greater chance of victory?
The latest polls indicate that Obama is ahead, although some of them put the Democrat ahead by a margin too small, so that he and McCain are technically tied.
According to an average of several national surveys of likely voters published by the Web site RealClearPolitics.com, covering the period between 23 and 29 October, Obama was ahead with 50% of electorate, compared with 43.7% for McCain.
However, analysts warn that there can be surprises, since many voters may be hiding their real voting intentions.
What were the main themes of the presidential campaign?
Earlier this year, the focus of the campaign seemed to be still in Iraq, reflecting the concerns of the American electorate with the deaths of soldiers in the long standing war. However, the strategy adopted by the United States in 2007 to expand the number of troops in the country, "the troop surge," has taken away some of the focus, the economic crisis has taken central stage.
In the three debates between Obama and McCain, in September and October, the main issue discussed was the economy.
Does the candidate who obtains highest number of votes get the presidency?
Not necessarily. The voters, technically, are not part of a direct election for the president. They choose "electors" that make up the Electoral College, who then promise to support a particular candidate based upon who wins the popular vote in that state. Each state has a number of electors equal to the number of its Senators and Representatives in the United States Congress There are 538 electors, and the more populous state, the more "voters" they have.
In almost all states, the winner of the popular vote takes all the electoral college votes of that state, even if the victory is by a very small margin. In other words: the distribution of delegates is not proportionate to the vote the candidate.
A candidate only needs 270 electoral college votes, and therefore, a candidate can win the presidency without having the popular vote.
What are the key states?
In recent years the trend has been that the majority of states on the east and west coasts vote Democrat, while the rest of the states vote Republican. But there are several states that could tilt to one side or another. Among them are Florida, Ohio, and Pennsylvania (each with 20 or more votes in the Electoral College) and also Colorado, Indiana, Missouri, Nevada, and Virginia.
Obama and McCain have focused their efforts in these states in recent days of the campaign.
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