You can check results in your home precinct at this link, though you’ll need WinZip to unlock the statistics after you download them from the Miami-Dade Election Department. I chose to download the Excel version (marked as Details XLS) after finding the text version to be incomprehensible.

My home Precinct (lucky) 13 in the far northern and eastern blocks of Miami Beach: 2,168 registered voters, of whom 1,448 voted, a turnout rate of 67 percent, which is just what the county as a whole showed.

How about the Obama-McCain breakdown: 893 for Obama, 548 for McCain.

Absentee? McCain got 148, Obama 140 (including me).

Early? Obama 495, McCain 268

Election Day? Obama 258, McCain 132.

Those who voted absentee or early were 1,051, or 73.4 percent of the voting population.

My figures for Election Day are off by a few. I discovered late in the game that one of the columns for Election Day was for the very small number of people who voted by the Ivotronic touch-screen method rather than the optical scan fill-in-bubbles method. And I hadn’t included them in my total, as my Excel skills are pretty low.

MORE: The results for Congressional District 18 for Precinct 13 may show how (though not why) Annette Taddeo lost to Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, which I regret very much.

Totals: Taddeo 734, Ros-Lehtinen 617. It's a nice margin for the Democratic challenger but not nearly enough to offset the incumbent's totals in more-Republican precincts. Taddeo's total of 734 is well under Obama's 893.

Still, a tip o' the hat to Taddeo's visit to the voting site on Sunday, the last day of early voting, when she greeted hundreds of people waiting in line. They will remember her charm and intelligence for the next time.

37% in Florida already voted

About a year ago I was groaning about the poor turnout in Miami-Dade County municipal elections. What a turnabout!

Already in Florida we've got 37 percent of registered voters in the bank, with 2.6 million voting early and 1.6 million absentee. That's out of 11.2 million registered in the entire state.

Checking statistics at the Miami-Dade County Elections Department website, your blogger sees that some 63,000 absentee ballots in the county had not been returned as of Saturday. This is worrisome. Where are those ballots, anyway? There were 207,667 sent out, and only 144,296 returned.

If yours is among those unreturned, I believe you can hand it in on Election Day at any polling place -- without waiting in line. Deadline: 7 p.m.

Waiting five minutes or so on the phone at 3-1-1, your blogger asked how many polling places there are in the county. Answer: 764 -- way more than the 20 early-voting sites that were so packed. There are more precincts, because some precincts vote together with one or two others at the same place.

For the record, turnout was 16.7 percent in the county municipal elections a year ago. It's so much better to see enthusiastic turnout now for president and congress, plus all the ballot initiatives. It's a real puzzle why we have to separate the local and national elections. This isn't the way it's done in many places.

Last chance for absentee ballot: today!

Tired of standing in line? Even with extended hours? Today, Wednesday Oct. 29, is the last day you can request to vote by mail for the Nov. 4 election.

And if you have already voted by mail, you can check the status of your ballot at this link on the Miami-Dade Elections website. I just checked mine, and am now satisfied that my ballot was received on Oct. 24 and that Barack Obama will be elected president. Those who are bathed in worry that their ballot has been stolen can receive at least some confirmation that the process works.

From today's Miami Herald (link below), this statistic:

Miami-Dade has mailed more than 174,000 absentee ballots and received 107,000 completed absentee ballots through Wednesday, according to the elections office website.

Wednesday is last day to request absentee ballot | MiamiHerald.com

Early voting starts today

Wonder where to vote early? When they're open?

Follow the link to the Elections Department page on voting early.

And if you are voting by absentee ballot, here's the place to check the status of your ballot -- whether it's been mailed to you, received back in the Elections Department.

Enjoy your rights as a citizen!

Check your absentee ballot -- received already?

Click on this link and you'll be transported to a web site in the county Elections Department and all you have to do is enter your zip code and birth date. Voila -- it was say whether your absentee ballot has been returned.

You did vote, right?