Off year elections -- those in odd years that do not involve federal offices (not even members of Congress, except for special elections like the one for Paul Hackett) are important ones all the same. They address local offices and issues that often have more direct effect on our daily lives than the "big" elections [hopefully, '06 will be more notable than some others]. For instance, this is the year in which New Jersey will get a new governor (after a dirty race in which an ex-wife of one of the candidates campaigned for the other -- yeah, she's a reputable source) and the mayor of NYC is running for re-election (and putting forth an ad blitz* that is only somewhat troubling ... to the degree that millions upon millions are being spent against someone who isn't going to win ... maybe not even his home base). And, various important ballot measures are being voted on throughout the country.
I am not too gung ho about such things -- they tend to be single issue measures that put on the ballot by small groups of people (maybe even one major backer) and the people who have to vote on the darn things do not learn too much about them. Thus, Kevin Drum (Political Animal) has a (pretty good) policy of voting "no" on all but the slam dunk ones ... but then California is especially gung ho about these things. The argument, somewhat sound, is that this gives "the people" (think Tenth Amendment) a direct way to vote on public policy. But "the people" often aren't the ones behind these things and "the people" probably often are better off leaving things to the republican process of indirect democracy. The general sentiment seems to be that at least my local ballot measures were decent ones while one of the two state measures (the bond issue) had to be submitted to the voters anyway. Still ...
NYC had four such measures -- two state, two for NYC alone. The only one that has gotten much coverage -- especially since the NY Daily News editorial staff hates it -- involves an alteration of the far from ideal state budget process which would give the legislature (perennially split, one party controlling each house, thus the delays) some (not complete) more power. I'm willing to try it -- it's not like the current system is so great; besides, as I read about it in my voting guide, it is not just some legislature power grab. The other state measure is a transportation bond matter -- generally supported. The two city measures involves a change in the how city finances are to be handled (both sides generally support it) and a judge ethics measure (could be done by executive or legislative action, so I decided to vote "no" though it is widely supported and likely to pass).
As to the local offices, NYC generally does not have many competitive elections ... surely not in my district. Voting is pretty easy -- my polling place is a few blocks away, usually fairly empty, and since I'm not a black Gore/Kerry voter, it's pretty easy sailing (just kidding). We use soon to be antique lever machines here -- no hanging chads for us! I had some problem a couple years back (the machine temporarily was down) and was given a written ballot. As to my votes, well nothing special, though I did submit a protest vote for Public Advocate (second in command to the mayor, but generally a do nothing job under the current command -- so I voted libertarian, whose main platform is that the position shouldn't exist), and as noted, I actually know one of the four judges (realized on the day of voting that superior court judges also were on the ballot) that I voted for.
I did my job as a citizen. It doesn't pay that well, but sometimes** it isn't too hard.
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* For instance, we hear ads (including on Air America ... this is for a Republican mayor who supported Bush, though he is liberal on various issues, and the likes of Whoopi Goldberg support him) talking about the false claims made by the Democrat, claims I personally never heard about since the challenger has so little money to spend (I finally saw a vanilla campaign ad that sent the message that he was for all members of the city ... though it was kinda vague about the whole thing).
As one sports radio host noted yesterday -- Bloomberg (yeah, that one) should just take a knee. Ferrer is a bigger longshot than the Jets were last Sunday when Vinnie was still QB. Still, including in VA, the Republicans (Bloomberg only became one to win last time -- sorta why Arnold waited to the recall election, playing the rules) are having problems today nationwide.
** I have not been called to jury duty for a few years, but I can tell you that some aspects of the position of citizen can be pretty difficult.