system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
ELI5: Explain the US Election. I'm Australian.
gpt
The election for the next U.S. president will be in about a year, in November of 2016.

The U.S. has only two major political parties, the Democrats (more liberal) and the Republicans (more conservative). While there are more parties than those two, they don't tend to matter in large election because the elections are winner-take-all, unlike in a Parliamentary system like in Australia. So whenever a third party emerges it tends to either get absorbed by one of the two major parties or die quickly.

Right now candidates are preparing for the primaries, where people vote on which candidate should be the official nominee of each party. There are hundreds running, but around 15 Republicans who seem to be serious contenders, and 6 Democrats.

Primary voting happens state-by-state, with the first primary happening in March. The candidates spend a disproportionate amount of time campaigning in the states that vote first, such as Iowa and New Hampshire.

It's still way too early to project who's going to win the primaries. At this time eight years ago, Obama was way behind in the polls, but he slowly gained support until he ended up winning the primaries decisively.

By around June it will be obvious who the official nominee is of each party. Then that person will pick a running-mate, who will be the Vice President if they win. Then they campaign until November when everyone picks either the Democrat or the Republican to be the next president.

That final vote is state-by-state too. For the most part, each state votes, and whoever is the winner of that state gets all of that state's votes towards the final decision. So sometimes the winner of the election isn't the one that got the most total votes, because they won strategic states.

Finally, there are also elections for Congress and local races going on too of course.

Update - fixed two typos (thanks): first states are Iowa and NH (not Ohio), and Obama's primary was eight years ago (not four).