Few of us have witnessed an election cycle with so many choices and such diverse political opinion. It's enough to make a body consider going out and voting, or at least surfing the Web to see what all the excitement is about.

Yet, despite a 400 percent growth in the number of political Web sites since the last presidential election, a lot of folks still aren't digging into the details available online.

For example, according to San Diego-based Internet traffic management company Websense Inc., one political satire cartoon on JibJab.com drew three times the combined traffic of the official sites for President Bush, www.georgewbush.com, and Sen. John Kerry, www.johnkerry.com. Try all three and you'll see why.

If folks are really waiting for the final bell, and don't have time to visit all 6 million political pages, here are a few worth checking as the clock ticks down.

If labels are what you are into, a site that ferrets out conservative views for readers is Real Clear Politics at www.realclearpolitics.com, while the blog Redstate at www.redstate.org features rants aplenty. On the other side, there is Move Left Media's www.moveleft.com while at the MoveOn site at www.moveon.org the fomenting is almost audible.

The Daily Kos at www.dailykos.com allows users to create their own online diaries so they can join the fray and dodge the flak.

If the bigger issue of fair elections is your topic, the Voter Protection Center at www.voteprotect.org or the Center for Voting and Democracy site at www.fairvote.org are your sites.

If you'd like to see what a crummy job the media is doing covering the election, the Media Research Center at www.mediaresearch.org attacks from the right and Media Matters for America at www.mediaresearch.org and the Alliance for Better Campaigns at www.bettercampaigns.org attack from the left.

So-called nonpartisan sites include Dick Cheney's favorite, the Annenberg Public Policy Center's www.factcheck.org, Project Vote Smart at www.vote-smart.org and the League of Women Voters at www.lwv.org.

There are the political magazines that don't spend too much time trying to hide behind a veil of objectivity, whether it's the left-leaning The Nation at www.thenation.com or the right-leaning National Review at www.nationalreview.com.

If you just want to trudge through the myriad propositions on the local and state level, many of the links can be found on this newspaper's Web site at www.nctimes.com/election2004, including the California Secretary of State's office at www.ss.ca.gov and the San Diego County Registrar of voters at www.sdvote.com.

Those who like a graphic interface will enjoy the Electoral Vote Predictor at www.electoral-vote.com for a map of where electoral votes are likely to go.

The Common Cause site at www.commoncause.org is worth a look if only for the number of additional links it provides.

Andrew Kleske is online editor for the North County Times. Email him at kleske@nctimes.com.