FINAL THOUGHTS ON THIS ELECTION

What follows are excerpts from the Inside Opinion blog by Press Democrat editorial writers Paul Gullixson and Jim Sweeney. The blog can be found on WatchSonomaCounty.com.

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Not excited about today's election and looking for a reason to make the effort? Try this one. You're voting for four.

Sonoma County is home to roughly 485,000 residents. Of those, only 248,000 are registered voters. And, if history holds true, only about half of those will cast ballots by the end of the day.

That means those who do vote will be making decisions for four people - possibly more. The turnout in the June 2008 primary was just 46.4 percent, meaning each voter that year was making decisions for 4.4 people.

Given that local voters today will be deciding -- or determining the top two candidates -- in two congressional seats, three state Assembly races, three Sonoma County supervisorial seats and numerous local ballot measures, it's a job worth taking seriously.

-- Paul Gullixson

California's new top-two primary system may produce a few general election contests pitting a Democrat against a Democrat or a Republican against a Republican. In one Southern California congressional district, handicappers say the top two could be an independent and a Republican. But no one is projecting a top-two finish for any of the minor parties -- Greens, Libertarians, Peace and Freedom and American Independent. If that's the case, the minor parties will be missing from the general election in November, and they fear they'll soon be gone from the ballot entirely.

Among them, the minor parties account for slightly more than 4 percent of the electorate, a figure almost certainly inflated by voters checking off American Independent on their registration cards when they instead intend to claim no party affiliation.

These small parties opposed the top-two primary initiative, and some of them are fighting it in court If they don't succeed, they have three avenues for remaining on the ballot: garnering 2 percent of the vote in any statewide race in a nonpresidential election, maintaining 1 percent of the state's registered voters, or gathering signatures from 10 percent of the state's registered voters.

Only the American Independent Party has more than 1 percent of registered voters, and petition drives are costly, so general election returns have been the best bet for minor parties to stay on the ballot. In 2010, all four minor parties had at least one candidate who secured better than 2 percent of the vote, topped by Pamela J. Brown, the Libertarian nominee for lieutenant governor, who got 5.9 percent. None of these parties has won a statewide, legislative or congressional election in California, though an unexpectedly strong showing by Peace and Freedom candidate Darlene Comingore (15 percent) cemented Doug Bosco's defeat in 1990 in a North Coast congressional district.

The goal of the top-two primary is to push candidates toward the political middle, and supporters -- including me -- have accepted the collateral damage for minor parties, which are farther out on the fringes than the most liberal Democrats or the most conservative Republicans. Tuesday's election offers the first test of the top-two rationale, and it's likely to renew the debate over minor parties are unfairly disadvantaged. One suggested compromise would allow minor parties to remain on the ballot if their candidates get 2 percent of the vote in presidential elections, which will continue to have more than two candidates on the general election ballot.

-- Jim Sweeney

Stacey Lawson, a candidate in the 2nd Congressional District, wins the award for being the target of the most negative campaigning. First, she's been the focus of a relentless anonymous blogger running a website titled "Who is Stacey Lawson?" which has raised questions about her background, voting record and visits with a guru in India.

(Update: The blogger revealed himself over the weekend in response to this Inside Opinion item. It's Paul Andersen, the North Coast activist who ran the RiggsWatch website back in the mid-1990s to track the work of former Rep. Frank Riggs. Up until April, he worked on the campaign of Marin County Supervisor Susan Adams, also a candidate in this congressional race.)

Lawson also has been the target of much criticism by her opponents during candidate debates. Then, as Staff Writer Guy Kovner reported last week, Lawson was the subject of a negative mailer sent out by the Norman Solomon campaign addressing her spotty record in voting during major elections prior to 2008.

My guess is that polls must be showing that Lawson, despite all of these hits, still has a good chance of finishing in the top two today along with Assemblyman Jared Huffman, the presumptive front-runner. This would leave Solomon, Adams and Dan Roberts, considered the leading Republican candidate, on the outside.

The fact is that negative campaigning, in some cases, does work -- especially among undecided voters. And there appears to be plenty of those going into today.

-- Paul Gullixson

There's also been a flurry of negative campaigning in the 1st Supervisorial District between Santa Rosa Vice Mayor John Sawyer and City Councilwoman Susan Gorin.

Late last week, an independent expenditure committee -- the same group responsible for an earlier mailer portraying Sawyer as Pinocchio -- sent out another negative mailer. This one reads "Who will Sawyer work for?" and raises questions about contributions he has received from business interests including the North Bay Leadership Council and building groups.

The Sawyer campaign shot back with a couple of robocalls over the weekend. One targets Gorin noting that although the Pinocchio mailer criticized Sawyer for raising development fees and business taxes while on the Santa Rosa City Council, Gorin also voted for those increases. The other call contends Gorin "did not lift a finger" when she was mayor to address runaway pension costs while Sawyer recently approved agreements that will save Santa Rosa "millions" that can be spent on "parks, potholes and gang prevention."

Well, not exactly. Most of that money is savings the city is counting on to drive down the escalating cost of retirement benefits and avoid making more cuts. And although Gorin voted against those new labor contracts with police and fire unions, it was because she felt the city could have negotiated for more substantial pension savings.

"We need to go further," she said in rejecting the firefighters contract on April 4.

Lost in all of this is the fact that there are four other candidates in this race -- all of whom live in the Sonoma Valley itself where the turnout is expected to be higher than in Santa Rosa.

A little more than half of the voters in the 1st District live in Santa Rosa. The rest live in the valley, where residents consider this their local election. The outcome will hinge on whether the votes in this race are divided based on geography or political philosophy. If it's the latter, it still could come down to Gorin and Sawyer as the final two in the fall. If it's philosophical, it's anybody's guess.

Prediction: It may be days before it's clear who the top two contenders in this contest will be.

-- Paul Gullixson