Quick Facts:

* On Tuesday, February 5th (or "Super Tuesday"), 24 states will hold nomination contests for president, but there is no uniform method in either party for how the process will take place. In every state, Democrats use a proportional method of awarding electors. The Republicans use winner take all with a few exceptions.

* Although the media focus has been on “winning states,”� the game really is about delegates. Because of that fact, comparable “sweeps”� of most states by frontrunners Clinton and McCain should be interpreted very differently. The Republicans may prematurely “end”� their ongoing conversation about the future of their party before many states have voted; the Democrats likely will continue it.

* Expect some states to have “electoral college”�-type outcomes — ones where one candidate wins the most votes and another candidate wins the most delegates.

* More than half of the Super Tuesday states have early voting or ready available absentee voting. We can anticipate millions of votes have already been cast; indeed more than 350,000 Democrats had voted in Florida before the South Carolina primary. Tens of thousands of votes were cast for candidates like John Edwards and Rudy Gillian before they withdrew from the race.

* The Republican Party nearly adopted a complete overhaul of its nomination schedule in 2000 and has started a process that may again lead to reform; the RNC Rules committee already had a meeting to consider numerous proposals.