With somewhere
between 3 million and 4 million provisional and absentee
ballots yet to be counted, No on 8 and Equality California
say it's too soon to concede and announced on a
press conference call Wednesday morning the campaign
will wait to hear from the California secretary of
state's office to make any decisions.
"Literal
fundamental rights hang in the balance," National Center for
Lesbian Rights executive director Kate Kendell told the
flood of reporters on the call. "A lot of these
later filed provisional ballots tend to be from a
different demographic, and my ballot is included in
those, so I'm hanging along."
According to
Equality California executive director Geoff Kors, fewer
than 400,000 votes separate yes from no in the state. Kors
said that we will likely have to wait until tomorrow
to find out anything definitive from the secretary of
state.
"We
don't feel it's appropriate to make a call
just yet, absent of counting millions of
ballots," Kendell continued.
Despite hearing
from No on 8 Tuesday night that many of the early returns
showing Yes on 8 significantly ahead represented a number of
absentee ballots, which tend to be filed by older,
more conservative voters, Kors made
assurances that the votes they're waiting on now
are late to register and last-minute absentee voters.
Those votes, he
said, tend to skew younger and more liberal.
Kendell added
that finding out from the secretary of state where in
California the bulk of these ballots are from will be key in
figuring out where No on 8 stands. (Ross von
Metzke)
