This is gonna be some more Norwanking, but I feel compelled to mention it...
Last city council election we had here was the first time I've actually partaken in voting for such. And it was great! The major news networks put up lists on their websites of the various candidates running and give a brief bio on them, and then you can take a political alignment quiz that the politicians themselves have taken, where salient topics are brought up and you answer with how much you agree or disagree with the proposed action. Some of the candidates even put in their reasoning behind particular agree/disagree answers, so you can see what their thought process was when giving that answer. Then it calculates out which candidates you were most aligned with in your answers, and gives a percentage match for each.
One of the people I ended up voting for was some gal I had never heard of before in a party I don't fully align with, but she seemed to have a good head on her shoulders and provided some sensible reasoning behind a few of the answers she'd given in that quiz.
...and then the voting process itself is also remarkably painless. I think I spent maybe 30 minutes from standing in line to walking out finished, but I did pick a less-busy hour to get my voting done.