Ballots

County clerks across the state braced for continued heavy traffic today, some three days after same-sex marriages became legal in California. Although officials had anticipated a slowdown after Tuesday's record-breaking distribution of marriage licenses, many said they continued to see large numbers of couples seeking licenses. Traffic was expected to remain high today, they said, because Friday is a traditionally busy day in the world of marriage licensing.

Emotions may run high for California voters in November, not just over the choice of the next president but also over many of the 11 initiatives on the same ballot that tap into their personal beliefs. Voters will decide whether to ban same-sex marriage, require parents to be notified before an abortion is performed on a minor, free farm animals from tight enclosures and put criminals in jail longer.

State propositions: An article in Tuesday's Section A about conservative efforts to place propositions on state ballots said a measure pushed by initiative promoter Ward Connerly to limit affirmative action in government had stalled in Nebraska. Such a measure stalled in Oklahoma, but one is set to appear on the Nebraska ballot.

Rep. Don Young won the Republican primary for the state's only House seat, state officials said in Juneau. With the last 350 absentee and provisional ballots tallied from the Aug. 26 election, Young beat Lt. Gov. Sean Parnell by 304 votes. Parnell, who had the backing of Gov. Sarah Palin, has said he would ask for a recount. That could take 10 days, officials said.

Most counties appear to be complying with a law requiring training of poll workers, but some are falling short in making sure voters are properly accommodated at their polling places, according to a state audit released Thursday. Auditor Elaine Howle found that current training guidelines do not cover the rights of decline-to-state voters, those who have registered to vote without declaring a party affiliation. About 50,000 decline-to-state voters failed to mark an additional bubble on their ballots indicating that they intended to vote in the Democratic or American Independent primaries during the Feb. 5 elections.

Support for the anti-gang tax known as Proposition A eroded Friday, with late absentee ballots showing that the measure had fallen short of the two-thirds needed for passage. Councilwoman Janice Hahn had voiced hope Wednesday that the proposition, which had secured 66.12% of the vote, might eke out a last-minute victory. Ballots counted Friday showed that the measure lost ground and now has 65.74% of the vote.

The lead increased slightly Tuesday for the countywide half-cent transportation sales tax hike known as Measure R, as the Los Angeles County registrar's office posted more unofficial results from the Nov. 4 election. Measure R has 67.23% of the vote and needs two-thirds to pass. The registrar's office did not say Tuesday how many votes are left to be counted, but Measure R proponents say that at this point the results of those ballots will have to be markedly different from the nearly 2.69 million ballots tallied for Measure R to lose.

Two weeks after election day, Kenneth Bennett and Paul Drugan were standing together at the Los Angeles County registrar-recorder's office in Norwalk, gazing through a window that looks into the ballot-counting room. Inside, under pale fluorescent light, workers moved like zombies, feeding ballot after ballot into machines with endless appetites. To Bennett and Drugan, this was a happy sight.

Democrat Al Franken withdrew 633 challenges to ballots in the U.S. Senate race, and an attorney for Republican Norm Coleman said he might follow suit. The canvassing board is to meet Dec. 16 to begin examining contested ballots. Coleman defeated Franken in the election by 215 votes, a margin so small that it triggered an automatic recount.

Officials began counting ballots in presidential and parliamentary elections in Ghana. In courtyards throughout the capital, election officials put tape around plywood tables and began sorting ballots. Onlookers whooped as the stack for their choice grew taller.