Absentee Voting

Goodbye annoying, nasty ads, so long dirt-flinging rhetoric and farewell to the constant assault of pounding negative nonsense into our heads minute by minute, hour after hour and month after month. Now we can go back to the really important ads: being brainwashed about being sick and needing every single pill that has been manufactured in the universe for illnesses we never even knew we had. Can't wait. Even that will be a relief after this very long and latest political mud fest.

Voters go to the polls Tuesday to decide a City Council race in Orange and bond measures for the Huntington Beach City School District and the Laguna Beach Unified School District. Voting hours are 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. To find your polling place, call the county registrar of voters office at (714) 567-7600. Or sign on to the registrar's Web site, http://http://www.oc.ca.gov/election and click on the "Polling Places" button on the left side of the screen.

I'm not housebound and I wasn't out of town or unable to get to my voting place--an unheated, untidy garage, where precinct workers gossip loudly. They may be well-meaning, but their chatter makes it difficult to punch out choices in the "privacy" of a canvas booth, particularly on a complicated ballot involving major offices, initiatives and bond issues. I don't want to spend billions of "my" tax dollars without due consideration.

The rioting in Los Angeles will delay the distribution of some voting materials and might disrupt absentee voting in San Diego County that was scheduled to begin Monday, the county registrar of voters said Friday. The Los Angeles-based Merrill Corp., which prints the sample ballots and absentee balloting material for San Diego and San Bernardino counties, was scheduled to work around the clock this week, but "that schedule has been completely disrupted," the registrar's office said.

The Mexican Senate on Thursday quietly let die a proposal to allow millions of Mexicans living abroad to vote by absentee ballot, denying the franchise to a potentially large bloc of voters in next year's presidential election. Mexican activists in the United States who had lobbied for the absentee vote were furious at being excluded from the 2000 ballot. Many blamed the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, which has ruled for 70 years.

After a brief scare, Mitt Romney appears to have reclaimed the advantage in Florida heading into the final weekend of campaigning before Tuesday's presidential primary. A new Quinnipiac University poll gives the former Massachusetts governor a 38%-29% lead over Newt Gingrich among likely voters, with Ron Paul at 14% and Rick Santorum slipping to 12%. The survey of 580 Florida Republicans was conducted Tuesday through Thursday. A  poll released just days earlier by Quinnipiac showed Romney statistically tied with Gingrich, 36%-34%.

Forget hanging chads. Throwaway cameras were the focus of dispute at the Loews Hotel in Santa Monica, which for a few hours Friday doubled as a polling station for expatriate Iranians hoping to cast absentee ballots for their homeland's next president. A conflict erupted after an opponent of the Islamic Republic wandered into the polling area, produced a cardboard camera, and began taking pictures in the direction of voters and election volunteers--apparently to intimidate them.

Before Angelenos go out today, perhaps wondering whether they will have the time or inclination to vote before the polls close at 8 p.m., here are a few reminders about the importance of election day. Around the world, America is the modern model of democracy. In fledgling democracies like South Africa, recently war-torn nations like Bosnia and Herzegovina and many former dictatorships, the right to vote is a thing to be cherished. It's something worth dying for.