The November 5 election must set a local record for lack of interesting races. There's no governor's race, no Senate position open. It's an off year for the city and county. The state legislature seats in Seattle are so solidly Democratic that a competitive race is an oxymoron; any tension was resolved in the Democratic primary. Beyond the state Supreme Court seats, it's thin gruel.

That leaves the ballot measures around transportation as getting most of the attention. But there's more, of course, and for those who still believe that votes count, it helps to have information from a skeptical source.

We aim to please. And, so, without further ado, the ETS! picks--with special boxes for the transportation measures we don't agree on ourselves, and for some extra measures you may not have heard of.

Elected Offices:

US House of Representatives: Unlike recent years, none of the Western Washington delegation appears to face significant challenge (even though we love Heidi Behrens-Benedict). Two years ago, we proclaimed, quite simply, "Incumbent Democrat Jim McDermott is a fraud." We endorsed his challenger, Green Party candidate Joe Szwaja, and Szwaja now believes his strong showing helped jar McDermott into bringing his actions more into line with his reputation. Whatever the cause, McDermott in the last month has been truly heroic in his efforts to publicize the fraudulence of the Dubya runup to war. "Osama bin McDermott" has gotten a lot of crap nationally for his courageous stand, and whatever his other failings, he deserves a strong ratification this year for taking the sorts of risks he should have been taking for the last decade. We need more of this kind of Jim McDermott--giving him a higher margin of victory might help. (Or he might sell us out again.)

State Legislature: Jim McDermott's case--where strong public backing might mean something--is the exception that proves the rule. He faces no serious challenge, hasn't for years, and so he's been lazy and unaccountable until now. So it is with almost all of Seattle's pathetic delegation to Olympia, all Democrats, few of them worth their part-time salaries. Velma Veloria and Adam Kline are the only ones in the last two sessions who did anything notable to earn their pay, and it's worth noting that Kline's been pushed hard in the Democratic primary the last two times by Dawn Mason. In the one open seat, the House seat in the 37th District of Southeast Seattle, Eric Pettigrew, a Norm Rice protege, unleashed one of the nastiest mail campaign pieces in memory against Cheryl Chow just before the primary. I couldn't have imagined anything that would make me feel sorry for Chow, but Pettigrew managed it. None of the essentially unopposed Democratic delegation beyond Adam Kline (Veloria's Senate seat isn't up for re-election this year) deserve a vote; for the rest, lodge a protest vote.

For the Pettigrew repugnance, there's a much more appealing alternative. Two years ago we endorsed Libertarian Ruth Bennett in her run for Lieutenant Governor, primarily due to her strong anti-drug war stand. Bennett is from the non-nut wing of the Libertarians, and her focus on government abuses of power would be ideal in this era of Locke-endorsed civil rights abuses. She'd be a damn sight better than a sleazeball like Pettigrew, whose liberalism is of the corporate welfare variety. Moreover, a Bennett win would break the Democratic and major party hegemony in Seattle, too. Vote Ruth Bennett.

State Supreme Court, Pos. 3: Speaking of unappealing choices: how 'bout Tim Eyman's lawyer vs. a career bureaucrat for the state's most powerful judicial position? Jim Johnson is the lawyer, and he could, in fact, be appealing in a Richard Sanders sort of way for his strong stands on civil liberties, but he also counts among his proudest moments his work for then-state Attorney General Slade Gorton to battle Indian treaty rights, all the way to the US Supreme Court. That was the famous Boldt decision, giving tribes back the fishing rights they were once paid in exchange for the land we live on, and Johnson's zeal in battling that decision suggests his enthusiasm for property rights declines if you're not white--exactly what we don't need during the War on Terror. He's too dangerous to ignore. Go with the faceless bureaucrat, and pray we can vote her out next time: Mary Fairhurst.

State Supreme Court, Pos. 4: The zealot here is Pam Loginsky, a Kitsap prosecutor whose zeal for the death penalty borders on sociopathic. She's up against incumbent Charles Johnson (no relation to Jim), one of the best and most competent of current justices. Vote Charles Johnson.

King County District Court, Pos. 3: Art Chapman, seeking a promotion from Muni Court, has championed Drug Court and the county's Mental Health Court; he also came off well when I met him at Seattle Weekly's editorial board interview, emphasizing prevention in addressing crime issues and the role a thoughtful court can play. Susan Noonan, a former prosecutor, has the endorsement of the retiring incumbent, but the last thing we need is another prosecutor on the bench. Vote Art Chapman.

Other judicial positions are unopposed, as is, essentially, Dow Constantine's off-year County Council seat. It's worth mentioning the one other failure of our supposedly competitive democracy: the unopposed re-election of King County Prosecuting Attorney Norm Maleng. For Maleng, a probable candidate for governor next year, his enthusiasm for executions is actually pretty far down the list of what makes him creepy. For his position, write in James Ujaama.