Predict how California's Prop 8 does

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The options narrow fail and narrow pass are only supposed to be for the case where it gets 50%, rounded to the nearest percent. If you think that it'll do worse than 49.5% or better than 50.5%, don't vote them.

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I'll take the cop-out of "narrow fail" (45-49.5% for).

Just because I've been waiting to toss out this observation - and I've been watching California returns for a couple of decades now - early returns tend to be more conservative than the overall results.

So it will reach it's highest 'pass' level at around 2-10% of the vote counted.   If it's failing at that point it should go down, if it's over 60% it'll probably pass, inbetween may make for a long night.

Then again, heavy early voting for Obama might change the dynamics of the returns this time around.

Yes, Orange county and the like tends to report the fastest. Often it can be useful to look at the early results from San Benito, they're a bellwether for California, except for that SOS election where the Republican was from that area. And not for primaries, either, they were hardcore Clinton.

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Well, I was the first 49% vote.

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Did anyone else get a robocall that tried to claim that Obama supported Prop. 8 about an hour before the polls closed? Gay marriage is a stupid issue, but Prop. 8's supporter's are some of the most vile people in the world, and I really hope that this somehow manages to lose. Nothing like spreading lies an hour before the polls close; no way for people to call you on your BS.

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A more careful analysis, I'm pretty sure that Prop. 8 has passed. LA county is only about 90% in. Right now it's passing there by 1 point. Generally, the liberal side of an issue has to win there to win statewide. The other areas yet to report are parts of Santa Clara, Orange, and some random other counties, that at best cancel eachother out. The right-wing didn't do so well in other races this election, but they sure managed to do well with their wedge issues.

Edit: There might be a sliver of a chance from absentee and provisonal ballots. In 2004, there were around 2 million votes in California that counted that weren't counted election night.

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With 99.5% of the precincts reporting, it's
  YES:  5,358,796        52.5%
  NO:   4,866,831        47.5%


However, there are probably a couple of million of provisionals and absentees out there.

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ACLU and affiliated groups are suing. FFs.

I thought we lived in a democracy...?

If the ACLU wants to overturn a proposition that people voted on, and it passed, let them go to hell.

Not every state lets you amend the Constitution with 50% of whichever voters decided to show up.

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The current status of gay marriage in California is a big question-mark. It looks pretty certain that Prop. 8 passed, although I suppose there's a tiny chance that the provisionals and absentees could overturn the result. However, the state Supreme Court has to rule whether this was a valid amendment passed, was a revision that needed a 2/3rds vote, or was just plain unconstitutional. Meanwhile, there's the question of the existing gay-marriage licenses. Attorney General Jerry Brown says he'll defend anything up to election day, but not the day after.