Election

This has not been a particularly elevating or inspiring election campaign. This may be why voters have responded so far with uncommon apathy. However, there has seldom been an election in which the choices have been as good. In some races, at least, even if your candidate loses, you can rest assured the winner will also do a pretty good job. Take the two statewide races. Either Lt. Gov. William W. Scranton, the Republican candidate, or former Auditor General Robert P. Casey, the Democrat, should make a good governor.

Claude Andrews said he just plain forgot. Kay Fritzinger said she's stepping aside to make room for her son. Charles Wehr said he's too busy. And so, finally, we have the answer to the political question: What if they held an election and nobody ran? It's about to happen in this tiny Carbon County community of 486 people, where the three aforementioned Borough Council members aren't running for re- election to the seven-member panel next month. There are no challengers, either.

Zinzi Mandela (left), daughter of jailed black nationalist leader Nelson Mandela, joined an anti-apartheid demonstration by students at Witwatersrand University in Johannesburg on Monday, two days before the whites-only parliamentary election in South Africa. In the election, the ruling National Party was victorious, while major gains were made by the right-wing Conservative Party at the expense of the liberal Progressive Federal Party, which had campaigned for an end to apartheid.

A local grand jury report on the May 1985 MOVE confrontation likely will not be public until after the November election, officials in the District Attorney's Office said yesterday. Terry Williamson, a spokesman for District Attorney Ronald D. Castille, said the grand jury probably would take additional testimony on certain aspects of the incident, in which 11 people were killed and 61 houses were destroyed by fire. Williamson said there was a "good possibility" that the report would not be complete and made public until after the election.

PEOPLE ARE so excited about this election with a woman and a black man. You know what I would like to see in my lifetime - when the candidate from each other party goes up against each other, the person who wins is president and the loser is vice president. Now that's something to get excited about. Both parties would have to work together then. The political science students and the think tanks need to work on that. Food for thought. Linda J. Turner, Philadelphia

The polls in Tavistock will be open from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. May 9, but the nine eligible voters in the pint-sized municipality probably won't need 13 hours to cast their ballots. Nevertheless, borough clerk Marie Redenauer won't release the results until the polls close, even though the outcome is a foregone conclusion. There are three candidates for the three seats on the Board of Commissioners. All three candidates for the four-year terms are incumbents, two of whom were elected in 1985.

FOR PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA, our endorsement for president, has made this election about the biggest thing of all: America's future. STATE HOUSE RACES In the 140th District: The Northeast seat being vacated by George Kenney. Vote: BRENDAN BOYLE In the 172nd District: For the seat long held by John Perzel. Vote: RICH COSTELLO BALLOT QUESTIONS On whether to establish a city Department of Parks and Recreation. Vote: YES On whether city residents whose civil-service test scores are identical to those of out-of-town test-takers should get priority for jobs.

Just because both candidates for mayor are running unopposed in their party primaries, that doesn't mean tomorrow's election isn't important. Besides mayor, Philadelphians will be nominating their party's candidates for City Council, sheriff, city commissioners, register of wills, clerk of courts and Common Pleas, Municipal and Traffic Courts. All Pennsylvanians will be nominating candidates for Supreme, Superior and Commonwealth courts. Some of these jobs are arguably as vital as mayor - if lower-profile and perhaps less glamorous.

Five candidates raised and spent more than $4,500 in last month's Pennsbury school board primary election, according to campaign reports filed last week with the Bucks County Board of Election. The five candidates - Gene Dolnick, Marilee Gillespie, Arlene Gordon, Alan Horowitz and Hoyt Phillips - reported spending a total of $4,869.80 in their campaigns. Gillespie, a Falls resident seeking to unseat incumbent Phillips in Region 3, spent the most - $1,777.11. Five individuals contributed $100 or more to Gillespie's campaign, and two of them contributed $250 or more.

WASHINGTON - Already, both sides in the presidential race have loosed the electronic dogs of war. On TV sets in Pennsylvania and other battleground states, it already looks like the first week of October, as the candidates and free-spending super-PACs working on their behalf launch attacks and counterattacks unprecedented in size, cost, and negativity for so early in the campaign. The strategic aim, of course, is to define your opponent before he can define himself, to begin hardening unflattering perceptions that can be reinforced by the onslaught to come.

CAIRO - As Egyptians prepare to vote Wednesday and Thursday, Coptic Christians are especially nervous. The Coptic Church dates back 19 centuries and is based on the teachings of St. Mark, who brought Christianity to Egypt in the first century. Copts are about 10 percent of the Egyptian population, but the rise of Islamist parties since the revolution has created great insecurity. "At the beginning, there were a lot of hopes [in the revolution]," I was told by Samia Sidhom, managing editor of Watani, a newspaper started by her father and now edited by her brother.

CAIRO - More than 100 Egyptians held since a mass arrest more than two weeks ago began an open-ended hunger strike Sunday to protest their continued detention and the possibility they will face military prosecution, activists said. Hundreds of activists outside prison including a presidential candidate meanwhile held a symbolic 24-hour strike in support of the group and against the military trials of civilians. The protest comes on the eve of presidential elections that are supposed to lead to Egypt's ruling military council stepping down in favor of a civilian government - but also amid rising fears that the generals will continue to transfer civilians to military tribunals after the transition.

An Allegheny County grand jury's indictment Friday of state Supreme Court Justice Joan Orie Melvin represents a new low for Pennsylvania's highest court, but it could prove to be a valuable driving force for reforming the state's discredited system of electing its appellate judges. Melvin, 56, says she will fight the criminal charges that she misused her taxpayer-funded staff while serving as a Superior Court judge by having it do political campaign work in her 2009 pursuit of a state Supreme Court seat.

CAIRO - Egypt's military ruler said Wednesday he hopes that a "great leader" will emerge from the country's presidential election, and said it will be a free and fair vote that will reflect the will of the people. The remarks by Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi appeared intended to assuage fears among many Egyptians that the ruling military council may be pushing a preferred candidate of its own, and reassure them that the pervasive rigging that was routine under ousted president Hosni Mubarak will not take place.

WASHINGTON - Congress is producing little this election year that will become law, yet both parties are churning out bills designed to make the other side look bad. Take a look at separate measures that would protect women from violence, keep student loan rates low, and build roads and bridges. Each is a widely shared goal and seemingly easy to enact. But the proposals are caught in pitched battles, each party adding language that infuriates the other. As a result, the Democratic-led Senate and Republican-run House are writing legislation that dies right away or is assured of going nowhere in the other chamber.

ATHENS, Greece - Hopes rose slightly Thursday that Greece could end its post-electoral deadlock without having to hold new elections, as international partners warned that Athens must stick to its hugely unpopular austerity program or abandon the euro. Socialist leader Evangelos Venizelos, who received the presidential mandate to try and form a government after two other party chiefs failed, said a meeting Thursday with a left-wing potential kingmaker had proved encouraging. If this third mandate fails, President Karolos Papoulias will convene party leaders in a last-ditch effort to get a deal - otherwise new elections will be held in a month.

In this week's Greek elections, the far-right, ultranationalist Golden Dawn party, whose members perform Nazi salutes at rallies, got 7 percent of the vote and entered Parliament for the first time. Its leader told journalists to stand upon his arrival at a news conference and ejected those who did not. A sick joke, you say. What's 7 percent? But Golden Dawn's gains are a symbol of a protest vote that fed extremes in Greece and decimated centrist parties, making it impossible to form a government in a country on the edge of economic collapse.

MADISON, Wis. - Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett won the Democratic primary Tuesday in Wisconsin's historic recall election, leaving him with a short four weeks to make the closing argument that Republican Gov. Scott Walker should be booted from office after 16 contentious months on the job. Walker easily defeated token opposition in the GOP primary Tuesday, so Barrett's win set up a June 5 rematch of the 2010 governor's race. It was an election that failed to hint at the turmoil to come.

JERUSALEM - In a turn of events that could influence a possible Israeli strike on Iran, Israeli media reports early Tuesday indicated that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had reached an agreement with the Kadima opposition party for a unity government, canceling an early election. There was no immediate comment from official sources on the decision. The reports came as Israel's parliament held debates into the night over whether to break up ahead of early elections called for the fall.