I love the smell of voting in the moring. It's the smell of a school gym.

It's primary day in Massachusetts, or as it's better known, four more days until another Pats game. Seriously, the word "apathy" may undersell how little people care about today's elections.

And it's not like there aren't contested races. On the Democratic side, there are 5 choices for governor (one who withdrew, so four active), three for lieutenant governor, and four for state treasurer, among others. The GOP has fewer races, but their lieutenant governor's race could change the face of the general election if Mitt Romney's hand-picked number two doesn't win (though she's expected to).

I say the smell of voting is that of a high school gym because the two places I've ever voted in person (Manchester and Wellesley) had their voting location in a school gym. In Manchester it was the elementary school, while in my precinct in Wellesley (and it's odd to think I even have a precinct; Manchester is one big precinct) is at the high school.

We got over there bright and early (polls open at 7 am) due to doctor visits and a concert which prevent voting late. Got to the school just after 7, pulled into the lot, and realized we had no idea where in the high school the voting took place. Common sense dictated a large room such as a gym, but no structure presented itself. So we ducked into the main doors to the school, and proceeded to have a nice tour of Wellesley High School, home of the Raiders.

We saw hallways. We saw the cafeteria. We saw everything but voting machines.

Finally, with almost no help from the snack bar worker we asked directions from, we found the gym and the voting booths all set to go. Hurrah! And, just so I didn't feel like an idiot, there were other, more responsible looking people who were also turned around by the lack of signs.

Anyway, I got to the table and had a little problem given that I was listed under Babson College rather than the school's Forest Street address. That was actually a good thing, as Forest is the boundary between precincts (OK, how many times can I use that word in this entry?). So rather than have to find some school I'd never heard of, we got to stay right where we were.

As I think I mentioned, I'd registered to vote by mail. This worried me, as I feared that some snafu would keep me off the rolls, a fear that proved baseless. Sarah, on the other hand, used the motor-voter option and registered when she updated her licence. She registered last October- and still wasn't on the rolls. According to the poll workers, this is pretty common. Don't know if the Registry of Motor Vehicles is to blame, but as they get a lot of blame to begin with, so might as well put this failure on them, too.

Wellesley, for those of you not familiar with the town, is a whitebread upper middle class suburb of Boston. It's highly Republican, as evidenced by a friend's registering to vote some years ago and being told "Oh, Republican. Just as we like it." For the 20 minutes or so that we were in the polling area, we were also apparently in Bizarro Wellesley, as a good 80 percent of the ballots handed out were Democratic (differing colors for ballots helped in my data gathering). Perhaps the conservatives come in later after their servants all vote early.

Taking my pink Democratic ballot in hand, I wandered over to the booth. The system used here is funny, in that to vote for someone I have to fill in an arrow. Using a magic marker, I filled in the space between the arrow's head and tail. Why this method, other than just straight OCR bubbles, I don't know. All I know it even this unusual system is going to be better than whatever they did in Florida. Speaking of which, when do Jimmy Carter and the UN intervene in Tallahassee?

So who did I vote for? Many people who I didn't know anything about, and a few who I know very little about. And yes, my vote counts as much as a fully informed person's does.

GOVERNOR No one really interested me here. Shannon O'Brien is the front-runner and current state treasurer. My beef with her is that the office of treasurer is, in my mind, synonymous with graft and corruption. Bill Crane ran the place like a personal bank, and Joe Malone seemed incapable of keeping his employee's from dipping into the till. O'Brien is apparently cleaner, but the performance of the state retirement fund under her watch is at issue. She also likes to take claim for reigning in the Big Dig, but it's not like the project has returned to fiscal solvency.

Tom Birmingham, state senate president, seems amiable enough. But his campaign has had a hard time putting forth a unqiue message other than him being down with the unions. Doesn't do much for me. Warren Tolman was going to get my vote as the only candidate using the Clean Elections system voters approved a couple years back, but he turned around and used the money to go negative. He paints himself as a reformer, but doesn't seem to know what he wants to reform. He also spent much of his campaign running against state speaker of the house Tom Finneran. Finneran isn't running for governor (not that he needs to, given how he's shaped his office into a protected duchy).

So I went with the diminutive Robert Reich, former US labor secretary. Can't say I'm really behind him, but he's at least outside of the Beacon Hill crowd. And Bill Bradley's been stumping for him, so it's a way to channel my latent disappointment at how Bradley's presidential bid panned out.

Sarah, toting a Republican ballot, didn't want to cast for Mitt Romney, heir presumptive, so she wrote in friend and conservative Shawn DeVeau. Laura DeVeau repaid the debt by writing me in for registrar of probate for Norfolk county. Had I known I'd have written myself in, too.

LIEUTENANT GOVERNOR For a largely ceremonial position, venture capitalist Chris Gabrieli spent a ton of dough in hopes of getting the nod. Shannon O'Brien has formed an alliance with him (we vote for each separately here in primaries, and perhaps even in general election, though I think that's changed). Both made it easy for me not to vote for him.

Instead I went with John Slattery, the Boston Globe endorsed state rep who has almost no chance given what little he's done to campaign. Polls have about one-third undecided about this race, so perhaps he'll get a groundswell of other people turned off by Gabrieli's spending.

TREASURER Four candidates, two with the last name of Cahill (not related). This led to the entertaining "Tim for Treasurer" campaign theme to distinguish himself from "first on the ballot, first in your hearts" Mike Cahill (he actually did use some version of that in an ad).

I eschewed both for Jim Segel, who was endorsed by the Globe, Herald, Patriot-Ledger, almost the entire Massachusetts Congressional delegation, and Suffolk County DA Ralph Martin (who's Republican, if memory serves). His ads started pretty late, but the race is apparenly wide open (because no one cares!), so we'll see.

STATE REP All I knew here was that Alice Peisch was endorsed by the local weekly and her opponent, Dr. Lawrence Kaplan, used the slogan "It's time to put a doctor in the House." Except that the "House" is in fact named the General Court. Stupid slogan + ignorance of local quirkiness = vote for Alice.

There was other stuff on the ballot, too, even some contested races for county offices. Don't know who I voted for and can't say I really care.

One other interesting race today is the Democratic primary for Suffolk County DA. Brian Honan, a former Boston city counselor, is expected to bring a good showing, and perhaps even win, even though he died of complications from surgery. He was well liked by colleagues and citizens alike, and most are seeing a vote for him as a fitting final tribute.