Early Returns is eating its Wheaties and prepping for a full night of primary election coverage, though it won't start in earnest until this afternoon.

In the meantime This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. with any stories, tips or anecdotes you see at the polls and we'll try to post them later. Even simple turnout numbers could be interesting -- at our local poll at a North Side senior center, a total of 12 people had voted in the first three hours since balloting started. We'd also like to hear about your voter ID experience -- at our poll, workers didn't ask for ID but handed over an information sheet explaining what to bring in November.

Rather than renting a hotel ballroom and holding a party like most pols, Jason Altmire will spend his biggest election night since 2006 casting votes in Congress.

The three-term McCandless Democrat is fiercely attached to his record of never having missed a vote since joining Congress in January 2007 and will not miss one tomorrow, despite what looks to be a close primary against fellow Democrat Mark Critz of Johnstown. (Critz will be at his hometown's Holiday Inn.)

"I wish we didn't have votes tomorrow but I have been elected to sdo a job and part of that job is voting. That's what comes first," he said in an inteview at his campaign office in Lower Burrell. "I'm not going to miss votes for politics."

Much of the battle in the race's closing weeks has been over funding for Social Security and Medicare, and both Critz and Altmire were on KDKA radio today still jousting over their voting histories and making in-person pitches to seniors. Altmire addressed a small group at a Lower Burrell senior center in the afternoon on that subject and others before descending on the American flag sheet cake (right) his campaign provided.

With about two-thirds of the new 12th District are in his old, North Hills based seat, regional turnout will be the main factor in who wins Tuesday, he said.

"You'll be able to tell on election night, if turnout is uniform across the district, relatively the same, that's good for me. Obviously if turnout is higher in Johnstown than in other parts of the district that's good for Mark. He has an all-out effort to get the votes in Johnstown, that's where the union organizers are focusing their attention, and we're doing just as much on our end to make sure we get the vote out in this part of the district."

And those votes Altmire will be taking rather than being back in the district? Six of them, largely having to do with park land in New Mexico, Minnesota and Idaho.

Skirmishing continued over the weekend in GOP incumbent Tim Murphy's defense of his seat against Evan Feinberg.

Both sides continued running radio ads against each other, andTV ads from an anti-incumbency group continued hitting Murphy despite an announcement from the Campaign for Primary Accountability that they were pulling up stakes.

The Murphy camp issued mailers (see above) hitting Feinberg over budget cuts (presumably from these plans) that his campaign claims would hurt veterans, seniors and manufacturing jobs. (UPDATE: Murphy fact sheet here.)

Feinberg has responded with a long statement on his website rebuffing the claims (especially on veterans/defense: his wife served in the Marine Corps in Iraq) and ends with this:

Unfortunately, Tim has ducked, dodged and avoided any and every opportunity to debate me. He refused to even say my name in a public forum. I have given hundreds of speeches at public events and he’s never heard a single one. Instead, he’s taken the cowardly approach with his negative ad blitz.

Pennsylvanians remember how desperate Arlen Specter became at the end of his career, doing anything to hang onto power. History is repeating itself with Tim Murphy. I guess the only thing left is for him to switch parties and run as a Democrat.

From the main site:

In what amounted to an early victory lap, Mitt Romney was crossing the Commonwealth on Monday, making primary eve appearances at Consol Energy's South Park research facility and later in the Philadelphia suburbs with Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, the object of speculation as a potential vice presidential candidate.

The GOP front-runner and presumed nominee was to have been joined by former Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Ridge at the Consol stop, but a spokesman for the campaign said the nation's first Homeland Security secretary had to cancel because he was sick.

In a 20 minute speech that reprised his standard stump remarks, Mr. Romney assailed the Obama administration on the economy and depicted the president as an enemy of energy development.

Mocking a recent television interview with Obama strategist David Axelrod, Mr. Romney said the advisor had said, "We've got to get off the economic road were on and take a new direction ... I could not agree more."

Mr. Romney argued that while the president has promoted wind and solar energy, his administration has set up roadblocks to the developments of fossil fuels, such as the coal and natural gas interests developed by his host, Consol.

Mr. Romney has regularly vilified President Obama as an enemy of the coal industry.

Among the other Republican officials showing their support for the presumed nominee at the Consol site were Rep. Tim Murphy, who faces a challenge Tuesday from Evan Feinberg, Rep. Mike Kelly, R-Upper St. Clair, and Rep. Mike Turzai, the state House majority leader.

Anticipating Mr. Romney's appearance Monday morning, Democratic campaign staffers noted that as as governor of Massachusetts, he had embraced rules against coal plant emissions such as those for which he now criticizes the administration.

Mr. Romney's cross-state tour came as Pennsylvania voters were preparing to go to the polls in a primary that lost considerable suspense with the decision by Rick Santorum to suspend his campaign.

Mr. Santorum nonetheless remains on the presidential preference ballot, along with Mr. Romney, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and Texas Rep. Ron Paul. That vote, however, amounts to little more than a beauty contest, as the Republican convention delegates are elected directly and are not bound to any candidate.

Voters will also choose nominees Tuesday in other primaries in New York, Connecticut, Rhode Island and Delaware.

Mr. Romney planned to spend Tuesday evening waiting for the votes in New Hampshire, the site of a vacation home and his first victory on the road to the GOP nomination that he has unofficially captured.

Mr. Rubio has been the object of running mate speculation -- for Mr. Romney and for other GOP contenders -- since the beginning of this election cycle.

Mr. Ridge was once considered a potential vice president himself.

In 1996, when former Sen. Bob Dole was the GOP nominee and again, at least for a time, in 2000, Mr. Ridge's name was frequently mentioned as a potential nominee. In the intervening years, however, the rightward drift of national Republicans on social issues has made the choice of someone with his pro-choice record a political impossibility.