The Scoop

Preparations for Election Day, Tuesday, November 6, 2012, are in high gear here at The Sacramento Bee, with the most experienced political team in the region. Use Sacbee.com throughout the day for breaking news, analysis, photos and video. Here are the highlights:

Resources for voters

• Polls open 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. Your vote-by-mail ballot may be dropped off at any polling place in your county or the election offices by 8 p.m.

• Voter Guide: Learn the candidates and issues

• California propositions: Your guide

• Sacramento Bee endorsements

• Interactive map: Predict the presidential vote

• Election Central

Live coverage begins at 7 a.m. at Sacbee.com

• Tell us when you vote. Report what you're seeing at your polling place, in your neighborhood, at your workplace. Share a photo: Email newsphotos@sacbee.com

• Join Bee reporters for live Q&A throughout the day.

• Get the latest local, state and national Election Day news.

• Interactive maps: Track results for president, Congress, California on Election Day.

• Exit polling: Learn what was on California voters' minds as they cast ballots for president and decided whether to raise taxes.

• Photos and video

Results

• 3 p.m. Pacific: First national returns in as the East Coast polls begin to close.

• 8 p.m.: First local and California returns in. Choose the races you want to watch and customize your own results page.

Helpful tools

• Sign up now for breaking news email alerts: sacbee.com/email

• Follow us on Twitter: @sacbee_news

• Join us on Facebook

What was Sacbee.com's most commented story today? "High court upholds key part of Obama health law," with more than 1,200 comments showing as of this writing. No surprise there; we know well how passionate people are about this subject.

Our comment moderators read them all and selected these 16 as the best -- the most representative of the discussion, the most thoughtful and the most civil.

Kudos to the featured commenters:

Sacbee.com is celebrating today! It's the fourth anniversary of our popular photo blog, The Frame.

The "big picture" blog showcases the best in visual storytelling from events around the world and has had more than 10 million page views. The most popular post? "Japan marks 6 months since earthquake, tsunami."

Tim Reese, The Bee's assistant director of multimedia, left, selects and builds each entry. "The Frame has been a great way to share images and picture essays, which, in the days before the Internet, would have been seen by far fewer people," Reese said.

So, how did we celebrate? With food, of course! Food writer Allen Pierleoni and managing editor Tom Negrete hosted a "scone throwdown" involving tasty entries from five Sacramento bakeries.

Bee newsroom staff tasted, compared notes and filled out ballot forms. Criteria were flavor, texture, moistness, appearance, heft, freshness and ingredients. Blueberries were dominant, though apricots and chocolate chips made appearances in the pastries as well. Our top picks: Broadway Bakery Cafe and Les Baux Bakery.

• Check out The Frame blog
• Follow The Frame on Twitter: @sacbee_theframe

PHOTO CAPTION: Scone taste testing in The Sacramento Bee newswroom with Allen Pierleoni, Leigh Grogan, Ken Campbell and Jing Cao.

Coming Tuesday, June 5, at Sacbee.com, get up-to-the-minute results for races across the Sacramento region and the state, with reporting from the region's premier political team.

LIVE BLOG

7 a.m. Tuesday: Live blogging with The Bee's election team begins when polls open.
8 - 11 a.m.: Updates from columnist Dan Morain at the top of every hour.
Noon - 1 p.m.: Bee editorial board member Foon Rhee hosts Q&A.
6 p.m.: Bee Capitol Bureau reporter Torey Van Oot takes your questions.
8-9:30 p.m.: Chat live with Bee political columnist Dan Walters.
8-10 a.m. Wednesday: Recap the results with Bee columnist Marcos Breton.

VOTE RESULTS

8 p.m.: Up-to-the-minute vote results as the poll close. See races from your city or across the state. Customize your results page.

ON MOBILE

Get your Sacbee news to go on your mobile device. Check in often for updated results and news.
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News executives from The Sacramento Bee, KCRA Channel 3, KXTV News 10, Sacramento Press and nonprofit community groups will gather Saturday from 1 to 3 p.m. to talk about community news coverage and answer questions from the public about their news operations and practices.

Access Sacramento, the public access cable channel for Sacramento County, will the host the event at Coloma Community Center, 4623 T St. Free food and refreshments will be provided. Call (916) 456-8600 for more information.

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Scott Koll joined Sacramento Bee editors Tuesday and Wednesday in their afternoon news meeting to discuss what stories should be on A1.

Koll's day job is a crime scene investigator for the Roseville Police Department, and he read about The Bee inviting readers to sit in on the meetings and learn more about how editors evaluate news and decide the day's top stories.

"I really felt like I was able to peek behind the curtains," Koll said Wednesday. "It was rewarding to hear editors discuss all the elements that go into a story, and then see it come together in (the next day's) paper."

Koll said reading the paper will be different for him now. For one, he said, he has a new appreciation for the "immense amount of work" that goes into putting together and packaging stories, and he'll think about some of the people he met and how seriously they take their jobs in trying to think about readers and how they might react to certain stories.

So for Thursday's paper, Koll liked a story about California streamlining regulation of the oil industry under Gov. Jerry Brown, and a story about admission trends at the University of California.

Interested in experiencing what Koll did at The Bee? You can apply to join editors for a few meetings by clicking here. If you don't see available dates, check back as we are periodically adding dates.

Sacbee.com's Voter Guide 2012 -- the place to learn about Sacramento-area candidates and issues on the June 5 primary ballot -- launches today.

Simply go to www.sacbee.com/voterguide and plug in your address to generate your personalized ballot. See what races you'll vote in. Compare the candidates. Read about the issues.

When you're ready, mark your choices and print or email yourself a completed ballot. You can even share your choices on Facebook, if you like.

Bookmark www.sacbee.com/voterguide now and use it as a resource as the June 5 primary nears.

It's optimized for mobile, so you can use it on your tablet, iPhone or Android.

As you might imagine, it takes a good many people here at The Sacramento Bee to pull off a comprehensive guide like this. The heavy lifting was done by researcher Pete Basofin. But, as with most things, his work is never done ...

The Voter Guide will be revised for the November general election. Expect a whole host of new local races and measures, and state propositions.

RELATED COVERAGE
• Election 2012: Full local and state coverage
• President 2012: Video, Delegate Tracker, Fact Checkers, Predict the Vote
• Endorsements: Recommendations from The Bee's editorial board
• New district maps: Assembly, Senate, Congress

The Bee relaunched a program this week in which a reader is invited in to discuss with Bee editors what stories should be on A1 the next day.

Bee editors call the program Dr. Risk, since the reader is supposed to take a risk by coming in to challenge Bee editors to reconsider their choices or ask them to explain why a particular story should be on A1.

This week's Dr. Risk was Claudia Morain, news service director for the University of California, Davis. Morain signed up a few weeks ago, but as luck would have it we had to ask her to recuse herself from chatting about one story on her boss, UC Davis Chancellor Linda P.B. Katehi, discussing a report on her role in the pepper-spraying incident at her campus late last year.

Morain said she found the experience of being Dr. Risk interesting and was amazed by the fast pace of the news meeting.

"Thank you so much for the opportunity to sit in the last two days. It's so cool to hear people talk about stories in the late afternoon and then see the discussion manifest as a newspaper the next morning," said Morain, who is at the forefront in the photo to the left listening to Bee editors discuss the stories they think belong on A1.

On Wednesday, Morain did challenge Bee editors on one story -- and she won. Editors were leaning against putting a story on Dick Clark's death on A1 simply because the news had broke early in the day and was getting coverage every where and most editors felt the story might feel old the next day on A1. Morain argued that Clark was an important icon to The Bee's readers and that it was simply shocking to her that the perpetually young-looking Clark had died.

"It was a kick to see Dick Clark on A1, disappointing everyone who thought taxidermy might be the ticket to cheating death," she said.

Since announcing any reader with a passion for news and a disposition for constructive debating could apply to be Dr. Risk at http://drrisksacbee.eventbrite.com, The Bee has nearly a full calendar of Dr. Risks through the end of January 2013. We'll soon add some more dates to sign up for and announce that to readers.

Starting next week we'll share some of tomorrow's A1 headlines today. So what are some of the top stories we are looking at for A1 Friday?

Another arena story, this one looking at the $11 million in yearly profits the Kings might have made, according to projections by the company, Anschutz Entertainment Group, that would have operated the new arena.

The latest data on homes sales in the Sacramento region showed a small uptick, and reporter Hudson Sangree talks to experts about what it means.

We are also looking at a story from medical reporter Grace Rubenstein that examines data that show where you live and work in the Sacramento region have a strong influence on your health.

We're having some fun with our Sacramento Bee Facebook timeline. Maybe you've had fun with it, too. Lots of people are sharing the links and leaving comments with their own memories. We hope you will, too.

You'll find a wonderful trove of milestones in Sacramento and world history at www.facebook.com/sacramentobee.

We've added key front pages of The Sacramento Bee since the first issue was published on Feb. 3, 1857 -- the stock market crash of 1929, the JFK assassination in 1963, Princess Diana's death in 1987 and lots more.

You'll also find photos from The Bee archives, including: hostages taken at the Good Guys store, 1991; the Kings' first game in Sacramento, 1985; deadly floods that killed 74 in Northern California, 1955; the opening of Tower Bridge, 1935.

Where were you on these key dates? What do you remember? What stories have you heard? We invite you to share your memories on our Facebook timeline.

I think you'll enjoy this walk back in time -- it's kind of addicting! Thanks go out to The Bee's Kevin Rolf and Pete Basofin for their work on this project. (Read the timeline post on Pete's Sac History Happenings blog.)

What stories would you put on the front of The Sacramento Bee?

Ever want to tell Bee editors they need to give a story more attention or ask editors what they are thinking in picking stories for the front of the paper or the homepage of sacbee.com?

Well, you have a chance to do that every Tuesday through Thursday with Bee editors at 4 p.m., when editors meet to discuss the day's top stories.

The Bee is bringing back a program called Dr. Risk that editors started in January 1994. The program has been on hiatus for the last several years but we think the original goal of the program is even more important today.

The goal of Dr. Risk is to invite community leaders and readers to our daily news meetings to tell us what stories they would put on the front page, and why; someone who would take a "risk" and challenge Bee editors to think about the kind of stories we are showcasing to readers.

To be considered to serve as Dr. Risk, click here to register and pick a date that works for you. An editor will contact you to let you know if you have been picked, or perhaps invite you to apply for another date.

Here's how the program works:

Each week, a reader, aka Dr. Risk, arrives at The Bee at 3:30 p.m. and is given a list of Page 1 story proposals and then attends the 4 p.m. editors' meeting where stories for the next day's front page are discussed. After listening to pitches by editors and asking them questions about their stories, Dr. Risk then recommends the four or five stories she would put on the front page, and why.

The qualifications? Curiosity, an interest in news and the printed edition of The Bee, and a willingness to share your opinion in a constructive manner. The commitment is approximately 90 minutes each afternoon, Tuesday through Thursday.