The Raleigh News & Observer takes a look at one of those election quirks that could matter next week -- in North Carolina, straight ticket voters must also separately vote for president:

Unlike many states, a straight-party vote in North Carolina does not cast a vote for president. A ballot expert says the split makes it more likely that voters, especially new voters, will leave their polling places failing, by mistake, to vote for president.

The split between presidential and straight-party votes has brought the state national attention this year because the margin between Democrat Barack Obama and Republican John McCain is expected to be close, and North Carolina's electoral votes would be a prize for either candidate.

An unusually high percentage of people in the state who voted in the past two national elections failed to mark a presidential selection.

In an analysis of election returns, Justin Moore, who received a graduate degree in computer science at Duke University, found that 3.15 percent of voters in North Carolina didn't vote for president in 2000, and 2.57 percent didn't cast a presidential vote in 2004.

Percentages higher than 1.1 percent -- the national, presidential-year average -- indicate a flawed ballot design or other problem, said Lawrence Norden, director of the Voting Technology Assessment Project at the Brennan Center at New York University's law school.

