Next weekend, we'll provide comprehensive coverage and candidate profiles in The Durham News for all local contested races -- Durham County commissioner, District Attorney and the school board.

On May 3, three days before the primary, The News & Observer will publish a Voters Guide covering everything on the May 6 ballot, from president on down.

For those who don't want to wait till the coverage arrives in ink-on-paper form, we're posting much of our election coverage online as we gather it.

As I write this on Thursday afternoon, a lot of information is already online about many of the statewide races and candidates, though not much yet on the local ones. We'll be adding plenty in the next few days. You can find the Voters Guide at http://know.triangle.com/factfinder/election2008

Candidates for local office always struggle to compete for attention with the big statewide and national races -- and rarely has it been harder than this year, when our presidential primary actually matters for a change.

It's on these local races that a responsible newspaper can be especially helpful at informing voters about issues and candidates.

Our challenge is to figure out a coverage schedule that is the most timely and helpful to the most readers. We tend to wait until the election is fairly close, because that's when voters are most engaged and hungry for campaign information.

Early voting, which started Thursday, is a relatively new (and welcome) option, but it adds to our challenge. A Voters Guide that's not distributed till May 3 arrives too late to help the early deciders. That's why we're scrambling to get the material online as quickly as we can.