Our view: First decision is whether to study your election ballot

This can be a time of despair or determination.

Americans head into the last weekend before the election with good reasons to look for escapes (TV football? post-Halloween parties?) and better reasons to bear down and study the monster ballots that await them on Tuesday if they haven't already voted by mail.

You may have long since decided on McCain or Obama. But the presidential race is only the tip of the electoral iceberg.

You may know which way you're voting on Proposition 8, which would reverse a recent state Supreme Court decision to allow same-sex marriages. But there are 11 other statewide measures on the ballot.

You may even have decided how to vote on a $25 million school bond levy, but there's also a School Board member to elect, along with three Harbor Commission members, three City Council members and a city clerk.

The local races, of course, are where your vote carries the most power. Obviously, there are vastly fewer votes cast in Del Norte County than at the national and state levels. And the nine-candidate fields for City Council and Harbor Commission will spread candidates' support pretty thin, likely meaning that very few votes will separate the winners from the losers.

Your single vote could tip the scales in one of those local races.

There are a lot of decisions to be made this weekend, but the first one is deciding if you'll be a responsible voter. You could always opt for some escapism, then go to your polling place on Tuesday and wing it. Or not vote at all.

At every level of government, there's good reason to be turned off about the political process:

• The national economy is in the tank, and this time it took your retirement money with it.

• There's gridlock in Sacramento as the state budget deficit continues to grow.

• Local leaders aren't exactly inspiring confidence either. The city government doesn't know how much money it has, and the Harbor District knows it has practically none.

These can be reasons to look away, or to look closer. If you choose the latter, the election offers a well-timed opportunity to start to turn things around at the ballot box. Perhaps you've hung onto those voters' guides that showed up in the mail recently, from the state and from the county. If so, dust them off and start considering those choices.

The Triplicate has collected its election coverage on its Web site, including local races, statewide propositions, Congress and the state Assembly. Go to www.triplicate.com and click on LOCAL 08 ELECTIONS. Read our endorsements if you choose, or head straight for the news stories. You can also listen to the newspaper's City Council and Harbor Commission candidate forums by clicking on CANDIDATES FORUM PODCAST.

With so many decisions to make, it's a jungle out there for conscientious voters. Don't feel bad if you have to take a cheat sheet with you to the polls Tuesday to remember how you've decided to vote.

It'd just be a sign that you're a good citizen who didn't turn away when your country, your state and your county needed you.