Long-time friends Phil Castelnick and Ginni Gibson are seen here supporting opposite candidate slates in Marco City Council elections last January. Early voting is available again for the election Nov. 4. File

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Early voting has become hugely popular here in recent years and you’ll have a chance to do it again in the upcoming presidential election.

Starting Oct. 20, Islanders can cast their votes at the Marco Island Library or at any of six other locations in Collier County. Hours for early voting are 10:30 a.m. until 6:30 p.m.

That’s the good news. The bad news for some would-be voters is this: If you have not already registered to vote, it’s now too late for the Nov. 4 election. Registration closed Monday at midnight.

If you are voting by absentee ballot and have requested one, yours should get to you by mail in mid October, says Gary Beauchamp, chief deputy supervisor of elections for Collier County.

My advice is to fill it out and send it back right away. Beauchamp says it’s important not to wait until the last minute.

“We must have the absentee ballots in our office no later than 7 p.m. election day,” he notes.

Here’s a fact about voting here that could be significant in this election and the political campaigning leading up to it.

“In the 2004 general election, we had 44,155 early voters here in Collier County,” Beauchamp reports. “If you combine that with those who voted by absentee ballot, more than 50 percent of the county voters had cast their ballots prior to election day.”

So what we used to know as “election day” really now is election days, even weeks. Still if you are a traditionalist or a procrastinator and choose to vote on the official election day, Nov. 4, don’t forget the rules.

– You must go to the correct assigned precinct. It is shown on your voter information card. Or to locate your polling site go to the county elections Web site, Colliervotes.com.

– You must show a photo and a signature ID to get a ballot.

– You can vote with a ballot printed in English or in Spanish.

So with a variety of choices on how to vote as well as for whom to vote, enjoy it.

The languages of voting, here and elsewhere in America

Collier is one of five counties in Florida that is under a federal mandate to offer ballots in Spanish as well as English. It has to do with the percentage of the population that is Hispanic.

Gary Beauchamp explains that the ballot languages are based on a formula by the U.S. Department of Justice.

“It involves what are called ‘measured’ languages. For example, if someone comes in and says, ‘I speak Polish and want a ballot in Polish,’ it doesn’t work that way. And we’ve been under this mandate since 1978.”

Not all languages are measured among the population. It’s up to the federal government.

Some people don’t like having ballots available in tongues other than English, but it’s federal law. Some states offer ballots in more than a couple of languages. Orange County in California has, I believe, 15 or 16 foreign language ballots.

Startling ads in odd places

The next time you catch a flight at Southwest Florida International Airport, check your boarding pass.

If you’re on Delta, you may notice the cash-strapped airline’s latest gimmick to raise revenue. The boarding pass may have advertising on it.

Just when you thought the airlines couldn’t find any more annoying ways to raise revenues, Delta is selling boarding pass ads on some flights.

Other airlines reportedly may join this latest barrage on our senses. The Wall Street Journal reports that similar boarding pass ads may show up on Continental, Northwest, United and U.S. Airways.

What’s next — ads projected on the insides of passengers’ eyelids? Why not? That way even if you nap during your flight, you’ll get a reminder to be sure and buy a cold Coke or a Bud when you wake up.

Speaking of ads in odd places, I recently used the restroom in a local restaurant. As I looked down into the urinal, I was startled to see my name in big letters on the deodorant cake — “DON”. What a thrill, an honor even. Then I wondered whether some ingenious marketer had rigged the restroom facilities to feature the name of any person standing there at any given time.

Turns out an Illinois firm, Edward Don & Co., is a leading distributor of service equipment supplies for restaurants. The company slogan is “We deliver everything but the food.”

If I had my druthers, I’d rather see my name on a pineapple upside down cake than the aforementioned “cake.”

Entrepreneurs have used urinal cakes for more than just oddly placed brand boosting. One example is from New Mexico, where 500 “talking urinal cakes” were sent to men’s restrooms around that state.

When the urinal user set off a motion sensor, a female voice would come from the “cake” with this message:

“Hey there big guy. Having a few drinks? It’s time to call a cab or ask a sober friend for a ride home.”

Forget the message. Just hearing that voice talking to you from down there might make a guy swear off booze.

E-mail: chris@chriscurle.com or don@donfarmer.com.