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Let's hope what happened in Florida over the weekend is not a prelude to Election Day.

Just take what happened at a polling place in Miami-Dade County in South Florida: After early voting on Saturday was plagued by long lines — some voters waited up to six hours — officials decided to allow voters in one location to request and turn in absentee ballots.

Shortly after that polling place opened, it was shut down on directions from Republican Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez.

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STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

In upstate New York, Maraleen Manos-Jones, who cultivates a butterfly garden, discovered the late-bloomer in its chrysalis. She'll travel with the monarch on a plane to the San Antonio Botanical Gardens, where it can join other monarchs on their epic migration to Mexico.

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RENEE MONTAGNE, HOST:

Asking voters to raise taxes on themselves is a tough sell, but there are initiatives around the country doing just that. In Missouri, it's the cigarette tax. Missouri has the lowest cigarette tax of any state, and some of the highest smoking and lung cancer rates. St. Louis Public Radio's Veronique LaCapra reports.

The final days of an election cycle bring an obsession with the short term — the very short term. Daily tracking polls. A relentless get-it, post-it, blog-it news cycle. Trending topics on Twitter telling us something (though it's not always clear what).

But for just a moment, let's slow it down, look at what's happening over a somewhat longer time frame, and see what it tells us about what the country will look like for the winner of the presidential race.

The Long View

Lianne La Havas was pretty much unknown until she appeared on the influential TV show in Britain called Later with Jools Holland. It was just her, singing and playing guitar. Her voice was clear, pure and soulful. The song she performed — called "Age" — was both jazzy and sassy.

"Time seemed to stand still," wrote one critic of La Havas' live performance. There were much more established artists on the music show that day, but Alison Howe, the producer, says La Havas was the standout.

As relentlessly as the candidates have courted voters, they've also shown their love to donors.

A report by the Center for Responsive Politics places the total cost of the 2012 elections at an estimated $6 billion, which would make it the most expensive election in U.S. history