Election
An election is a vote which determines which candidate is placed in office.
Most elections in the United States are based on a popular vote in which whoever gets the most votes in the election is declared the winner. Other elections require a candidate to get a majority; if no one gets a majority, the two top vote getters will have a run-off election, and whoever gets more votes in the run-off is the winner.
Another sort of election is the Electoral College, used to select the U.S. president every 4 years. Each state gets a certain number of electors. All of a state's electors are assigned to which ever presidential candidate gets the most votes in that state. In all but a few instances, the candidate who gets the most electoral votes has also gotten the most popular votes.