美国有线新闻 CNN 印度举行世界上最大规模的民主选举（在线收听）

Next story, India has kicked off what's been called the world's largest democratic exercise. That exercise is voting. And with a government that's a federal parliamentary republic and a population of 1.3 billion people, India is considered the world's largest democracy.

In this election, about 900 million people are eligible to vote. To give you a sense of that number, it's almost three times the entire population of the United States.

In order to give that many people the chance to cast ballots, India plans to open about 1 million polling stations across the country, and more than 10 million officials will be working to manage them. The election will take more than a month.

So, what exactly will voters be choosing?

545 seats have to be filled in India's lower house of parliament, and all but two of them are elected by a simple majority vote. The others are appointed by the president.

The party that wins the majority in this election forms the government that will rule for the next five years. But India has hundreds of political parties. So if a single one doesn't win enough seats, then a coalition or alliance can form to choose the nation's prime minister.

During the last general election in 2014, 464 political parties took part. And if that sounds like a lot, consider a number of candidates. There were more than 8,250 of them.