Truth be told, except for the big races at the top of the ballot -- president, governor -- I'm frequently a little fuzzy about the candidates in the lesser contests and where they stand on the issues of the day, such as how much e-mail state workers can delete before they risk a Class 3 misdemeanor.

Me, I need to cram before I go to the polls, so I can figure out, say, who should get the high honor of moving on to the November ballot in the race for superintendent of public instruction. Using context clues, I am confident that this person does something in the field of public instruction, superintending-wise. I'm studying on this.

And one way I am doing this research is by consulting our online Voter's Guide, which our staff has been putting together in addition to everything else they have to do. You can find it find it two ways, the easy way and the clunkier URL way.

On our home page at newsobserver.com, our Web folks have put a large banner called "Your Campaign Headquarters," and there is a link to the guide in that banner. That is the easy way. Or you can go directly to the guide by going to know.triangle.com/factfinder/election2008. Bookmark it and forget the URL.

Once you get there, you will see links for counties in and around the Triangle, and if you click on your county, you will see the candidates organized by the offices they are seeking.

Click on a candidate's name and you will go to a page that will give you some biographical information, what he or she does for a living, education, military background and positions. There's also contact information and links to Web sites.

One useful feature that I like a lot is a sample ballot link that takes you to the State Board of Elections Web site.

By putting in some information about yourself -- name, date of birth, county -- it will show you a sample ballot listing all the races for which you are eligible to vote May 6, depending on your political affiliation. If you are a Republican and your Democratic wife cancels out your vote every election because she hasn't come around after all these years, she will see a different sample ballot than yours.

If you are a political junkie, you can get your fill on another part of our Web site by going to our online Under the Dome page.

The easiest way to get to it is from our home page, via a link in the "Your Campaign Headquarters" banner. You can also get there with the Web address projects.newsobserver.com/dome.

Our political reporters are updating the online Dome frequently with news about the state campaigns and the presidential primary. You can look at ads that are running on TV, including Andy Griffith's pitch for Bev Perdue and the N.C. GOP's Rev. Wright ad that is causing fainting spells all over.

Cheap eats

Sue Stock, our retail reporter, did a story this week on making a $12 "entree" (that's the main dish, for those of us who vote at Clayton Fire Station No. 2). She did it by shopping at discount stores -- Dollar General-type discount stores, not highfalutin' places like Target. She has launched a contest, inviting you to submit your own recipe. It has to serve four. Finalists will bring in the dish to be judged, and we'll need to inspect your receipts. Send your recipe by Friday to sue.stock@newsobserver.com or 215 S. McDowell St., Raleigh, NC 27601. You can get the details by going to newsobserver.com and searching for "dollar store gourmet." There will be prizes and glory for the winner.