It’s almost over — except for a last mad dash to the finish

It's time.

Today -- after years of thinking about the plight of the nation, months of meeting and listening to the candidates in person, weeks of being bombarded by fliers and commercials, and days of going to the polls -- Nevadans' choice for the next president will finally be made.

Perhaps never before has Nevada been the focus of so much national political attention as it has this year, from the January caucuses in which 150,000 Nevadans expressed a preference for their parties' presidential nominees -- and chose neither Democrat Barack Obama nor Republican John McCain -- to a general election season in which the Silver State was hotly contested by both sides from the beginning.

Some people have had enough.

"I am fed up with politics to my last nerve," barked a woman who answered the door -- briefly -- at a North Las Vegas home visited by two Obama canvassers Monday.

Before slamming the door, she said she was planning to vote but hadn't yet.

More than half the state's active registered voters cast early or mail-in ballots over the past two weeks. Officials expect total turnout to hit historic highs of more than 80 percent when today's votes are counted.

"This election is different than anything else we've seen," Clark County Registrar of Voters Larry Lomax said. "There's so much interest in it. It's hard to believe turnout could get up to 85 percent, but it looks like it will happen."

Lomax expects around 250,000 to vote in Clark County today, putting total turnout at 700,000 of the county's 815,000 voters. In 2004, the biggest election to date, fewer than 550,000 people propelled Clark County to a record 80 percent turnout.

From 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. today, 339 polling places will be open in Clark County, manned by more than 4,000 poll workers staffing more than 4,000 electronic voting machines. Lomax expects things to go smoothly and recommends voters avoid the morning and evening rushes if possible.

Those who encounter problems at the polls should ask to speak to the team leader at the location. To find a polling place, voters should consult their sample ballots. Individuals can look up voter registration information online at www.accessclarkcounty.com/elections; or call the election department at 455-VOTE (8683).

The presidency is not the only choice facing Nevada voters today. Also on the ballot are the state's three seats in the U.S. House of Representatives, where two incumbents, Republican Reps. Jon Porter and Dean Heller, face strong challenges. Voters also are being asked to choose justices for two seats on the state Supreme Court; members of the state Assembly and Senate; two candidates for open seats on the Clark County Commission; and a bevy of local judges and education officials.

In addition, voters elsewhere will be deciding matters of interest to Nevada's two U.S. senators, who are not on the ballot themselves. Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., has spent a frustrating two years as head of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, trying to keep GOP seats from slipping away. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., has watched Ensign's task become more difficult as his majority stands to increase.

In the bigger picture, today's election stands to be a referendum on Nevada's political complexion. Will the state remain a bastion of leave-me-alone conservatism, bucking a national tide that has turned against the Republican Party? Or will Nevada's pendulum swing in a more liberal direction, nudged by the demographic changes that have reshaped the American Southwest in recent years?

Either way, most political watchers expect it to be close.

For the Obama and McCain campaigns, today is a sprint to the finish in an election that has been unfolding in slow motion since early voting began Oct. 18. Both campaigns have competed madly for Nevadans' attention. McCain and running mate Sarah Palin made the state their last stop before returning to their home states, Arizona and Alaska, on Monday night. Obama made his 20th trip here on Saturday, and his wife, Michelle, held a rally in North Las Vegas on Monday morning.

At the McCain campaign's West Coast regional headquarters in Henderson, three men picked up a folder and set out in a car: Las Vegan Howard Curtis, 60; 43-year-old Christopher May, a McCain constituent from Scottsdale, Ariz.; and Mark Turina, 23, who lives in Los Angeles but is here to pound the pavement for five days because "I am very passionate about McCain being our president for three reasons: life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."

They arrived at Canyon Willow Pecos Condominiums near Pecos and Russell roads, a "55 and over community." Their folder presented them with a baffling list of condo numbers. At No. 101, an Obama flier already hung from the door handle. "That shows you what's going on in Nevada this season, doesn't it?" May cracked as he hung a McCain flier over it.

At another unit, a man wearing shorts and his wife both said they'd changed their minds and voted for Obama.

Finally, at the second-to-last condo on their list, 82-year-old Ann Armstrong told them, "You've got three votes here. My husband, my daughter and me."

Across the Las Vegas Valley, in the neighborhood where the fed-up woman named Lila slammed the door on the canvassers, there was a bit of a pall over the Obama campaign with the news that the Nevada state director, an effusive New Yorker named Terence Tolbert, had died of a heart attack Sunday night. Tolbert was 44.

But there was still work to be done for 17-year-old high-school senior Betsy Navarro and 55-year-old Conchita Foster. They set out from a cavernous campaign office off Civic Center Drive north of Lake Mead Boulevard.

Staffer Gaby Baca gave Navarro and Foster their packets -- maps of the neighborhood they'd canvass, with lists of names and houses. Like the McCain canvassers, they wouldn't knock on every door, just the ones the campaign's data gurus had highlighted as housing potential Obama voters.

Most people spoke Spanish in the neighborhood near Eastern and Washington avenues. Navarro and Foster caught 44-year-old Gloria Torres in her garage, unloading her old Cadillac. In Spanish, she said she had already voted for Obama.

"Gracias, senora," Foster and Navarro said before moving on.

There were more than 50 houses on their list. It would take hours. They would need every single vote.

Contact reporter Molly Ball at mball @reviewjournal.com or 702-387-2919.