In the six years since the great hanging chad incidents of the 2000 presidential election, federal and state officials have been pushing for a new way of casting our ballots. It's been controversial, to say the least. The most controversial is the fully electronic systems, which many California counties will be trying in his June's election. There was another lawsuit filed yesterday to stop the use of those machines.

Ventura County has taken a different tack. They're going from the punch-card system to a pen-and-paper system. You'll mark your ballot with a pen and then it will get immediately run through an optical scanner which will record the ballot and let you know if there are any problems. We'll show you how it works in tomorrow's Star.

Inside, we'll give you the latest on Thursday's NCAA March Madness game between UCLA and Gonzaga. Sports writer Rhiannon Potkey is back on the road this week covering UCLA.

Also there's lots of entertainment coverage in tomorrow's Star. From Time Out to the Arts & Living section, there will be advances and coverage of a whole range of things to do this weekend. I'd tell you ... but our entertainment writers do a better job of it. Check it out.