Not who or what to vote for, but how.

This is how I make decisions, particularly on those nasty propositions. It's too easy to say "vote against everything." Some propositions - not many, but some - have been good ideas.

Step One: Turn off the noise. Don't watch or listen to political ads. Don't read the crap they fill your mailbox with either. That goes from my mailbox right into the recycle bin before I even get in the house. ALL parties. It's 90 percent crap, with a large dollop of lies.

Step Two: The most reliable information source I've found is the voter's guide that California sends me. Each side presents pros and cons (including rebuttals!) on each proposition, and the fiscal analysis is usually pretty accurate. If there's a "poison pill" buried in the proposition, and there usually is, the opposition will tell you. You can also tell a lot by who supports something and who's against it.

Everybody's into mail voting now, or "early voting," including an awful lot of healthy people who shouldn't have trouble going to the polls personally. I go in on election day and vote. That way, I've got more current information than those other guys do.