If you cannot be in Florida or Ohio, the capital of the world's largest and liveliest democracy - New Delhi - is not a bad place from which to watch the strange rituals of a US presidential election.

There were certainly some wry comments last week about outdated US counting practices in swing states. M.S. Gill, a former chief Indian election commissioner, saw it as "remarkable" that parts of the most technologically advanced nation on earth used rules dating back to the 18th century.