RSSeNEWS to be determined...

Voters in the US state of Maine have turned out in very high numbers to repeal a law that legalised same sex marriages. Maine is considered the state most supportive of gay marriage and the result confounded predictions by leading electoral statistician Nate Silver.

Silver had forecast a 70 per cent possibility of defeat for the bid to overturn the law, on the basis of data from recent polls and his own modelling. The vote was split 52 v 48 per cent in favour of repealing the law. It highlighted different attitudes of urban voters, who broadly supported the law, and rural voters who rejected it 2:1.

Commenting in his blog on fivethirtyeight.com, Silver wrote: "we have to seriously consider whether there is some sort of a Bradley Effect in the polling on gay rights issues ... As for the model, I think I'll need to look whether the urban-rural divide is a significant factor in a state in addition to its religiosity: Maine is secular, but rural.

"At the end of the day, it may have been too much to ask of a state to vote to approve gay marriage in an election where gay marriage itself was the headline issue on the ballot. Although the enthusiasm gap is very probably narrowing, feelings about gay marriage have traditionally been much stronger on the right than the left, and that's what gets people up off the couch in off-year elections."

Other commentators pick up this theme and say the result reflects the resurgence of the right after the election of President Obama in 2008.

National polls indicate that America is deeply divided on gay marriage. According to a CBS News poll in April 2009, about 60 per cent of Americans think 'some form of legal recognition is appropriate' for same-sex couples. But only one in three supports legalising same-sex marriages. However, that support has increased quite rapidly; in 2004 just 22 percent were in favour.