Nov. 4, 11:10 P.M.
According to the Omaha World-Telegram, “Nebraska voters approved a constitutional amendment that would ban race- and gender-based affirmative action programs.”
The vote total was not provided; I’ll add it later. A court challenge to the initiative is also still pending.
With about 25% of the precincts reporting at this hour, the Colorado Civil Rights Initiative is losing, 51.89% to 48.11%.
I’ll update these totals later or, more likely, tomorrow.
UPDATES
11:20 P.M.
The Lincoln Journal-Star reports that the Nebraska Civil Rights Initiative passed with 56% of the vote.
Nov. 5, 12:45 A.M.
The Colorado Civil Rights Initiative is slowly inching up. With about half the precincts reporting, CCRI is still behind, but now by only 50.89% to 49.11%.
Nov. 5, 6:58 A.M.
With 2,796 of 3,215 precincts reporting, CCRI now trails by 50.34% to 49.66%.
Meanwhile, in Nebraska, the Omaha World Telegram has expanded its article, cited above, now grudgingly reporting that
The voters have spoken, banning affirmative action in Nebraska.
Now the Nebraska Supreme Court might get its say….
But David Kramer, the director for Nebraskans United, which opposed the ballot measure, said he holds out hope that a Lancaster County District Court judge soon will declare the petition drive — and therefore Tuesday’s vote — invalid….
Kramer acknowledged that some voters would be frustrated if the courts invalidated the election results.
Well, yes. People do become “frustrated” when judges throw out clear and unequivocal election results.
Nov. 5, 9:40 P.M.
With 2,935 of 3,215 precincts reporting, the margin between opponents and proponents of racial preferences in Colorado remains razor-thin: 50.36% in favor of preserving state racial preference policies; 49.64% in favor of the Colorado Civil Rights Initiative, which would prohibit them.
Explanations vary for why Colorado may become the first state to reject a proposal mandating colorblind equality. There were so many complex initiatives on the Colarodo ballot this year, nearly all of which failed, that many observers think there was a large “No” vote against any and all initiatives.
Voters took a look at one of the longest sets of ballot measures in state history and responded with one short word: “No.”
Nine of 14 statewide questions were rejected by voters, including two that had the high-profile support of Gov. Bill Ritter and other top state Democrats. One other [CCRI] was losing late, though still too close to call.
Floyd Ciruli, a Colorado pollster and political analyst, had an additional explanation of why so many Coloradans voted against a ban on preferential treatment: the presence of Barack Obama at the top of the Democratic ticket.
Ultimately, Ciruli believes, the massive turnout for Obama helped the opponents.
“They benefited from a good year…. They also picked up the progressive audience who were voting for a black president.”
So, the presence of a black but allegedly “post-racial” candidate may have served to preserve discrimination based on race and ethnicity in Colorado. Congratulations, President Obama.
Nov. 6, 11:10 P.M.
With 96% of the precincts reporting, CCRI is losing, 51% to 49%. Most of the remaining precincts are in liberal Boulder and Mesa counties.
The Colorado defeat in some ways echoes the earlier failure of an initiative in that state to ban bilingual (i.e. monolingual Spanish) education. AA and Bilingual Ed. are hallmarks of multiculturalism, which thanks to people like Bill Ayers and education schools is becoming a mainstream ideology.
Note that an Oregon initiative to ban Bilingual ed also failed this election. Again, that left-leaning state is fully in the throes of multiculturalist ideology.
Revisionist writes:
>>>”Note that an Oregon initiative to ban Bilingual ed also failed this election. Again, that left-leaning state is fully in the throes of multiculturalist ideology.”
What “monoculturist ideology” are you presuming must be preserved? Is there some “Real America” handbook that I didn’t get the memo on?
Actually, as a registered Democrat, I truly, sincerely hope that you and the conservatives in the GOP continue this “Sylvester Cat/Speedy Gonzales”-style campaign of alienating and antagonizing Hispanic-Americans.
>>>”Latino voters shifted in huge numbers away from the Republicans to vote for Senator Barack Obama in the presidential election, exit polls show, providing the votes that gave him unexpectedly large margins of victory in three battleground states: Colorado, New Mexico and Nevada…
…Mr. Obama’s pull on Latino voters also extended to Florida, where a majority of them voted for a Democratic presidential nominee for the first time since at least 1988, when exit polls were first conducted in the state.
In a year when turnout among many groups surged nationwide, the number of Latinos who went to the polls increased by nearly 25 percent over 2004, with sharp rises among naturalized immigrants and young, first-time voters, according to a study by the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials. Hispanic support for the Democratic nominee increased by 14 points over all compared with 2004, the biggest shift toward the Democrats by any voter group.
For the first time, Latino voters emerged as a mobilized Democratic voting bloc in states across the country, Latino officials said…
…Nationwide, Hispanics voted 67 percent for Mr. Obama and 31 percent for Senator John McCain, according to Edison/Mitofsky exit polls.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/07/us/politics/07latino.html
And couple that with this demographic REALITY…
>>>””This election proves Latinos are no longer just a political sideshow,” says Henry Cisneros, former secretary of Housing and Urban Development. “The Latino population is large enough that it moves the needle.”
This newfound clout is only expected to increase in the coming years, as the growth of the Hispanic population outpaces that of the rest of the nation. In 2016, Hispanics are expected to number about 60 million, up from 45 million today. And though Hispanics voted overwhelmingly Democratic this time around, they are likely to be courted heavily by both parties in the future.
“Twenty years from now Latinos will be twice as important as they are today,” says Matt Barreto, a political science professor at the University of Washington who does Hispanic polling.”
http://sec.online.wsj.com/article/SB122593469349803755.html
Suffering suckatash!!!
–Cobra
Speaking as a Colorado voter, our paper ballot took up three sides of legal-size paper. I am sure that indeed many voters just went “no” to everything. I found myself doing that a few times, and I was voting at home (by mail) with time to actually read the document.