So this is good news, right? Well, maybe. Let's be clear about something. The networks are being extra careful because Tuesday night shows all the promise of being just as close as last time around. If the picture becomes clear early on, the folks in Hawaii may find themselves casting meaningless ballots again.

No, the 2000 election didn't end the problem of early election results. However, the trend toward absentee voting will. The Post reports that an estimated 50 percent of voters in New Mexico and Colorado are voting this way now, and the figure is 70 percent in Washington state. Traditional exit polling won't account for those folks. Meanwhile, traditional polling methods — calling people at random on the telephone — is in trouble, too. More and more people are using cell phones as their primary phone, and with caller ID, it's too easy to knowingly reject a pollster's call.

That sort of thing screws up random sampling. We could be heading into a brave new uncertain world at election time.

Personally, I prefer the Washington Redskins' methods of predicting the outcome. As a Newhouse News Service story noted this week, the Redskins' game closest to Election Day has been a foolproof predictor of the presidential race since 1932, when the team was the Boston Braves.

If Washington wins, the current party in the White House wins. If the team loses or ties, get ready for change. You can take it to the bank.

Let's see people in Hawaii try to keep the networks from giving us NFL scores.

• Whoops: Last week, in writing about the perils of early voting, I implied that Utah did not allow people to vote absentee in-person before Election Day. That was wrong. As Amy Naccarato, director of Utah's elections office, nicely pointed out to me, people here may vote absentee in person at their county clerk's office. That is not the same, however, as the early voting going on in several states right now. That remains, in my opinion, a bad thing.

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Jay Evensen is editor of the Deseret Morning News editorial page. E-mail: even@desnews.com