11/4/2008 11:00:00 PM Election results:
Voters OK marriage; reject taxes, Homeowners'
Bill of Rights, lawmakers' pay hike
High turnout expected for Arizona voting
By PAUL DAVENPORT, Associated Press Writer
PHOENIX - Arizona voters who aren't among the many who have cast early ballots go to the polls Tuesday in an election that sees Republican John McCain running in what appeared to be a recently tightened presidential race in his adopted home state.
Along with statewide questions on same-sex marriage and other issues, ballots also include contested congressional races and numerous tight legislative contests.
Secretary of State Jan Brewer projected statewide turnout of at least 80 percent of Arizona's nearly 3 million voters. As many as half of those voting may have done so already, either by mail or at advance voting sites.
An 80 percent turnout would be substantial higher than the 71.7 percent and 71.7 percent rates seen in Arizona in 2004 and 2000, respectively.
Polls will be open from 6 a.m. to 7 p.m. MST. Voters casting ballots at polling places must show identification.
Voters can drop off their early ballots at any polling place Tuesday, but it's too late to put them in the mail.
The presidential race in Arizona was long regarded as an easy win for McCain because of his residency and numerous wins in Senate campaigns. With that, neither McCain nor Democrat Barack Obama campaigned actively in the state, though each had a small number of offices.
That changed late in the campaign when a statewide poll found McCain holding only a small lead - within the poll's margin of error. Obama responded by airing a television ad in the state and McCain followed by scheduling a Prescott rally for very early Tuesday morning.
Down the ballot, all eight U.S. House seats from Arizona are up for grabs. The congressional races regarded as most competitive include contests for the largely rural 1st District in northern and eastern Arizona, the 3rd and 5th districts in the Phoenix area and the 8th District in southeastern Arizona.
Arizona's U.S. House delegation is now split 4-4 between Democrats and Republicans. Two years ago, Republicans held a 6-2 advantage.
All 90 legislative seats - 60 in the House and 30 in the Senate - also are on the ballot, though eight Senate candidates and six in the House are running unopposed. Republicans now hold a 17-13 margin in the Senate and control by the House 33-27.
Statewide propositions deal with hiring of illegal immigrants, same-sex marriage, taxation of home sales, health care, home warranties, legislative pay and a higher threshold for most ballot measures.
The only statewide offices on the ballot are three seats on the Arizona Corporation Commission. Republicans now hold all five seats on the utility regulating panel.
Some parts of the state also see state-mandated votes on whether to combine high school and elementary school districts into unified districts. Cities with unification votes include Casa Grande, Glendale, Phoenix, Tempe and Yuma.
The Daily Courier
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Arizona voters approve anti-gay marriage amendment
By BOB BAUM, Associated Press Writer
PHOENIX - This time, Arizona voters said "yes" to a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage.
Proposition 102, a stripped-down version of the one rejected at the polls two years ago, was passing 56 percent to 44 percent with 81 percent of the precincts reporting Tuesday night.
The measure was simplified with the hopes of a different outcome, and the strategy worked.
In 2006, voters made normally socially conservative Arizona the only state to reject a same-sex marriage ban on the ballot.
Unlike that more complicated measure, the proposal before voters this year was stripped down to 20 words: "Only a union of one man and one woman shall be valid or recognized as a marriage in this state."
The measure carried no immediate practical impact since same-sex marriage already is banned under a 1996 Arizona law. Supporters said adding the ban to the constitution would prevent judges from one day overturning that law.
Catholic and Mormon leaders were among the most vociferous proponents of the measure, which was referred to the ballot by the state Legislature.
Opponents called the proposal unnecessary and mean-spirited. They said the Legislature could have better spent their time on more pressing issues facing the state.
Two years ago, the Arizona measure was the only one of eight such proposals on the ballot nationwide that day to fail. Overall, 27 states have approved anti-gay marriage measures.
Besides banning such unions, the 2006 measure would have barred government entities - such as the state, cities, counties, universities and school districts - from recognizing civil unions or domestic partnerships. That meant it would even have applied to men and women living together but not married.
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100 - Voters overwhelmingly OK initiative barring real-estate transfer tax
By CHRISTINE ROGEL, Cronkite News Service
PHOENIX - Voters overwhelmingly approved a ballot proposition Tuesday that will amend Arizona's Constitution to bar state or local governments from adding a tax on the sale or transfer of homes, farms and other real property.
Voters were approving Proposition 100 by more than three to one.
A well-funded effort led by real estate agents contended that Proposition 100 would prevent double taxation of property owners, who already pay property taxes.
"The passage of Prop 100 is a victory for Arizona taxpayers," said Tom Jenney, Arizona director for Americans for Prosperity, a conservative association that advocates for taxpayers. "It sends a strong signal to politicians that the people of Arizona do not want state and local governments coming after their houses in search of a new revenue source to boost bloated budgets."
The Arizona Education Association raised the strongest objections to the proposition, saying it would be unwise to limit the options of governments dealing with Arizona's struggling economy and population growth.
As of 2004, 35 states and the District of Columbia had taxes on the sale or transfer of real property, producing about $7 billion. The amount was less 1 percent of the sales price or less in 27 states. Such taxes are imposed at the local level in some states.
Neither Arizona nor any of its local governments have such a tax.
***
201 - Voters shoot down proposition pitting trade union against home builders
By MARIA KONOPKEN, Cronkite News Service
PHOENIX - Arizona voters on Tuesday overwhelmingly rejected a ballot proposition that would have given buyers more leeway in seeking compensation for and repairs of problems with new homes.
Proposition 201 was failing by a margin of nearly four to one.
The Homeowners' Bill of Rights Committee, consisting primarily of members of Sheet Metal Workers Local 359, put forward the proposition, calling it the Homeowners' Bill of Rights and saying it would protect buyers. Home builders mounted a well-funded campaign saying it would lead to unnecessary lawsuits.
The measure would have required builders to offer 10-year warranties on new homes. It would have allowed homeowners to choose who repairs defects and would guarantee compensation for repairs not completed.
It also would have prohibited sales contracts from requiring alternate means of resolving disputes, such as mediation and arbitration. Prospective homebuyers would have been allowed to sue over repairs, and the required notice for buyers to request repairs would have been reduced from 90 days to 60 days.
Supporters said the proposition was intended to protect homeowners from shoddy work that results from homebuilders' pressures to produce homes faster and cheaper. They argued that current laws and statutes of limitation on lawsuits favor home builders.
***
300 - Arizona voters overwhelmingly reject pay raise for lawmakers
By KELLY McGRATH, Cronkite News Service
PHOENIX - Arizona voters on Tuesday overwhelmingly defeated a ballot proposition that would have given state lawmakers their first pay raise since 1998.
Proposition 300, which carried a recommendation that lawmaker pay be increased from $24,000 to $30,000, was losing by a two-to-one margin.
Bruce Merrill, a retired Arizona State University professor who directs the Cronkite/Eight poll, said the economy wasn't the only factor behind the outcome.
Merrill said he was sympathetic to lawmakers, however, because serving in the Legislature is a demanding job that pays little.
Since 1998, voters had defeated four other attempts to increase lawmakers' pay.
***
Reports from earlier in the evening (9 p.m. Arizona time)
Obama triumphs, will be first black US president
By DAVID ESPO, AP Special Correspondent
WASHINGTON - Barack Obama swept to victory as the nation's first black president Tuesday night in an electoral college landslide that overcame racial barriers as old as America itself.
The son of a black father from Kenya and a white mother from Kansas, the Democratic senator from Illinois sealed his historic triumph by defeating Republican Sen. John McCain in a string of wins in hard-fought battleground states - Ohio, Florida, Virginia and Iowa.
A huge crowd in Grant Park in Obama's home town of Chicago erupted in jubilation at the news of his victory. Some wept.
McCain called his former rival to concede defeat - and the end of his own 10-year quest for the White House. "The American people have spoken, and spoken clearly," McCain told disappointed supporters in Arizona.
Obama and his running mate, Sen. Joseph Biden of Delaware, will take their oaths of office as president and vice president on Jan. 20, 2009.
As the 44th president, Obama will move into the Oval Office as leader of a country that is almost certainly in recession, and fighting two long wars, one in Iraq, the other in Afghanistan.
The popular vote was close, but not the count in the Electoral College, where it mattered most.
There, Obama's audacious decision to contest McCain in states that hadn't gone Democratic in years paid rich dividends.
Obama has said his first order of presidential business will be to tackle the economy. He has also pledged to withdraw most U.S. combat troops from Iraq within 16 months.
Fellow Democrats rode his coattails to larger majorities in both houses of Congress. They defeated incumbent Republicans and won open seats by turn.
The 47-year-old Illinois senator was little known just four years ago. A widely praised speech at the Democratic National Convention, delivered when he was merely a candidate for the Senate, changed that.
Overnight he became a sought-after surrogate campaigner, and he had scarcely settled into his Senate seat when he began preparing for his run for the White House.
Shortly after 11 p.m. in the East, The Associated Press count showed Obama with 338 electoral votes, well over the 270 needed for victory. McCain had 127 after winning states that comprised the normal Republican base.
The nationwide popular vote was remarkably close. Totals from 58 percent of the nation's precincts showed Obama with 51 percent and McCain with 47.9.
Interviews with voters suggested that almost six in 10 women were backing Obama nationwide, while men leaned his way by a narrow margin. Just over half of whites supported McCain, giving him a slim advantage in a group that Bush carried overwhelmingly in 2004.
The results of the AP survey were based on a preliminary partial sample of nearly 10,000 voters in Election Day polls and in telephone interviews over the past week for early voters.
Democrats also acclaimed Senate successes by former Gov. Mark Warner in Virginia, Rep. Tom Udall in New Mexico and Rep. Mark Udall in Colorado. All won seats left open by Republican retirements.
In New Hampshire, former Gov. Jeanne Shaheen defeated Republican Sen. John Sununu in a rematch of their 2002 race, and Sen. Elizabeth Dole fell to Democrat Kay Hagan in North Carolina.
Democrats also looked for gains in the House. They defeated Republican incumbents Rep. Tom Feeney and Ric Keller in Florida, 22-year veteran Chris Shays in Connecticut and Rep. Robin Hayes in North Carolina.
At least two Democrats lost their seats. Rep. Kevin Mahoney fell after admitting to two extramarital affairs while serving his first term in Florida. In Louisiana, Democratic Rep. Don Cazayoux lost the seat he had won in a special election six months ago.
The resurgent Democrats also elected a governor in one of the nation's traditional bellwether states when Missouri Attorney General Jay Nixon won his race.
The White House was the main prize of the night on which 35 Senate seats and all 435 House seats were at stake. A dozen states elected governors, and ballots across the country were dotted with issues ranging from taxes to gay rights.
An estimated 187 million voters were registered, and in an indication of interest in the battle for the White House, 40 million or so had already voted as Election Day dawned.
Obama sought election as one of the youngest presidents, and one of the least experienced in national political affairs.
That wasn't what set the Illinois senator apart, though - neither from his rivals nor from the other men who had served as president since the nation's founding more than two centuries ago. A black man, he confronted a previously unbreakable barrier as he campaigned on twin themes of change and hope in uncertain times.
McCain, a prisoner of war during Vietnam, a generation older than his rival at 72, was making his second try for the White House, following his defeat in the battle for the GOP nomination in 2000.
A conservative, he stressed his maverick's streak. And although a Republican, he did what he could to separate himself from an unpopular president.
For the most part, the two presidential candidates and their running mates, Biden and Republican Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska, spent weeks campaigning in states that went for Bush four years ago.
McCain and Obama each won contested nominations - the Democrat outdistancing former first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton - and promptly set out to claim the mantle of change.
"I am not George W. Bush," McCain said in one debate.
Obama retorted that he might as well be, telling audiences in state after state that the Republican had voted with the president 90 percent of the time across eight years of the Bush administration.
***
What's Next-Electoral College
Key days between Election Day and Inauguration Day
Key dates in formalizing the presidential election results:
• Nov. 4: Voters in the general election choose a group of electors from each state to serve in the Electoral College, which will elect the president and vice president. When Americans vote, they are technically picking representatives pledged to the candidates and aren't voting directly for the contenders themselves.
• Dec. 9: Deadline for states to resolve issues regarding election recounts, controversies or contests.
• Dec. 15: Electors meet in their states to pick the president and vice president. They are not required by federal law to follow the will of the popular vote in their state.
• Dec. 24: Deadline for designated officials, such as the president of the Senate and others, to have the electoral votes in hand, though states do not face any legal penalty if they don't comply.
• Jan. 6: Congress meets to count the electoral votes. The president and vice president must win a majority of electoral votes, or 270, to be elected. If there is no majority, the House selects the president, and the Senate selects the vice president.
• Jan. 20: The president-elect is sworn into office.
AP: Kirkpatrick wins in Arizona’s 1st District By FELICIA FONSECA, Associated Press Writer
FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. - Democrat Ann Kirkpatrick defeated Republican Sydney Hay on Tuesday in the race for the congressional seat representing Arizona's 1st District.
Heading into Election Day, political observers had said Kirkpatrick, who resigned as a state lawmaker to run for Congress, had an edge over Hay, a mining industry lobbyist.
Kirkpatrick's win means the seat will be in the hands of a Democrat for the first time since it was created early this decade. Voters elected Rick Renzi to three terms, but the congressmen announced last year he wouldn't seek a fourth term.
Posted: Wednesday, November 05, 2008
Article comment by:
To
Some of us do believe in God and what He says in the Bible. That is why, to us, same-sex unions defile God's definition of marriage. If you want to believe differently, please do so. But, that is why some people voted against Prop 102. I won't bash you because of your choice, would you afford me the same courtesy.
Posted: Wednesday, November 05, 2008
Article comment by:
No name provided
You know what? The ban on gay marriage has nothing to do with the actual marriage. The problem is that once gay marriage is OK, then the schools will teach it to our kids and we will no longer be able to say that we think it is wrong! I don't care if they marry but I do care if they then force their beliefs on me!! That is essentially what would happen and I have a serious problem with THAT.
Posted: Wednesday, November 05, 2008
Article comment by:
Use2Do
No surprise about 102. But the fact remains that the electorate cannot vote in discrimination and prejudice. It will be eventually overturned. I have yet to hear a cogent, intelligent argument about how gay marriage defiles marriage in general. Hasn't the non gay population already done that with divorce rates of 50% +, spouse and child abuse, incest and infidelity?
Live your life as well as you can and let others do the same!
Posted: Wednesday, November 05, 2008
Article comment by:
No name provided
Why did Rick Renzi choose not to seek a fourth term? I'll tell you why. He was too scared of losing to a Democrat! I'm sure there's some inmate in a federal penitentary who will be more than happy to give him a sympathy hug.
Posted: Tuesday, November 04, 2008
Article comment by:
Who's Color Blind?
Congratulations to Barack Obama on becoming this nation's first bi-racial president. Someday we'll elect a black president. Everyone should be proud of their ENTIRE heritage, not just part of it.
