LOS ANGELES - The extraordinary spectacle of California's recall election drew to a close yesterday, as voters turned out in substantial numbers to decide whether to depose Gov. Gray Davis, and perhaps replace him with Arnold Schwarzenegger, Hollywood action hero and novice politician.
Davis fought to avoid becoming the nation's first governor in 82 years to be recalled from office. He was elected to a second term just 11 months ago, but with less than 50 percent of the vote, dragged down by his personal unpopularity and voters' anger over the state's struggling economy.
Recent polls suggested voters favored throwing the Democratic incumbent out of office and installing the moderate Republican Schwarzenegger. But it was uncertain whether the Terminator star's appeal had been tarnished by 11th-hour allegations that he groped women and spoke admiringly of Adolf Hitler.
At late morning, election officials said polling places around the state were reporting long lines and a shortage of parking places. At a polling place in Hollywood, the early turnout was the heaviest Patti Negri had seen in 12 years as a polling supervisor.
I've never been so busy
ever she said. We had to do a lot of paperwork but people seem excited and ready to vote.
Yesterday's vote was the final act in a remarkable melodrama, played out on the stage of the nation's most populated state before a gawking, incredulous worldwide audience.
There were bit players on the ballot, including a porn star, a punk rocker, a sumo wrestler and former child star Gary Coleman. But the plot turned on the fates of two personalities who could not have been more different, Davis, the cagey, immensely unpopular career politician, and Schwarzenegger, the exuberant bodybuilder-turned-megastar who had never run for office.
Schwarzenegger created a stir when he arrived to vote with his wife, Maria Shriver, at a Pacific Palisades mansion. He said he had to put on his glasses to read the 135-candidate ballot, which ran to several pages, but had no trouble finding his name: You always look for the longest name.
After casting his own vote in West Hollywood, Davis said: I feel absolutely terrific. I have always trusted the voters of California and I know they're going to do the right thing today.
Secretary of State Kevin Shelley declined at midday to estimate turnout, but his office reported last week that a record number of voters for a gubernatorial race - 15,380,526 - were registered.
Voters faced two questions - whether to recall Davis, and who among the other candidates should replace him if he is removed. The format required the governor to run largely against himself, and meant that Davis needed 50 percent or more of the vote to survive, while a successor could replace him with much less support.
I'm horrified at the thought that Schwarzenegger can be our governor
said Gretchen Purser, 25, of Berkeley, who voted against recall. I'm sick of Republicans trying to take over the state.
Ed Troupe, 69, of Thousand Oaks, voted yes for recall and for Schwarzenegger. As far as I'm concerned
he said, Gray Davis is one of the dirtiest politicians I've ever encountered.
Though Schwarzenegger held a commanding lead over his rivals going into the final week, his campaign was shaken by allegations published in the Los Angeles Times just days before the election from six women who said he groped them or made unwanted sexual advances. Allegations continued to surface over the weekend and, by yesterday, a total of 16 women had come forward.
The Austrian-born actor also was confronted with reports that he had praised Hitler as a young man - accusations he disputed.
Responding to the sexual misconduct charges, Schwarzenegger acknowledged he had behaved badly sometimes. But he attacked the newspaper and some of his accusers for what he called a last-minute effort to derail his candidacy.
Davis called the reports of groping clearly a crime
and the state's Democratic attorney general, no friend of Davis, said the charges warrant an investigation even though the statute of limitations has expired.
Other major candidates seeking to replace Davis were the Democratic lieutenant governor, Cruz Bustamante, conservative Republican state Sen. Tom McClintock and Green Party candidate Peter Camejo.
Voters also considered ballot propositions that would prohibit state and local governments from collecting racial data and dedicate money to public works projects.
Preliminary data from a telephone survey of absentee voters and an exit poll among those who voted yesterday morning indicated the electorate was split on whether California would be able to resolve its budget deficit without raising taxes. The exit poll, conducted for The Associated Press and other news organizations by Edison Media Research and Mitofsky International, also found only about one in 10 people who voted Tuesday reported problems with voting equipment or the ballot's length.
Davis' plight reverberated across the nation, to the 18 other states that have initiative, referendum or recall provisions. If the state that brought us right-on-red is again a pioneer, perpetual campaigns could become common.
Davis stood to become only the second governor in U.S. history to be recalled, after North Dakota's Lynn Frazier in 1921. The cost of the election to California taxpayers was estimated at $67 million.
The victor will face daunting problems, including an ailing economy, a budget deficit now estimated at $8 billion and a tax-and-spending system many believe needs serious reform.
The recall movement was launched in February by grass-roots activists, angered over a tripling of the state vehicle license fee and a 30 to 40 percent increase in student fees at state colleges and universities, measures taken at the start of the year to try to close a whopping $38 billion deficit.
The movement really took off when Darrell Issa, a conservative congressman from San Diego County, poured $1.7 million of his fortune into the campaign to get the measure on the ballot.
Criticism of Davis mounted, with recall proponents claiming he squandered the state's $10 billion surplus in 2000 and lied to voters last fall when he was running for re-election to conceal the dire state of the economy. He also was accused of being slow to respond to the state's energy crisis in 2001 and presiding over a pay to play system that rewarded lobbyists and special interests for hefty campaign contributions.
Schwarzenegger cast himself as an outsider - he showed up at the Capitol on Sunday holding a broom to clean house - and claimed to be beholden to no special interests, even though he, too, accepted large campaign contributions from developers and major business interests.
Democrats portrayed the recall as part of a nationwide GOP power grab and sought to keep other Democrats off the ballot. But party unity was shattered when Bustamante, a moderate from the agriculture-rich Central Valley with a history of chilly relations with his boss, abandoned his pledge not to run. The first Hispanic elected to statewide office in more than 120 years, Bustamante was seeking to become California's first Hispanic governor since Romualdo Pacheco in 1875.
But it was Schwarzenegger who was the overpowering presence, even without the 22-inch biceps that made him Mr. Universe. Other GOP candidates such as businessman Bill Simon, former baseball commissioner Peter Ueberroth and Issa dropped out of the race, with Simon and Issa endorsing Schwarzenegger.
Tracked by national and international media, the Austrian immigrant found frenzied crowds wherever he went; flashing an iridescent smile, he tossed campaign T-shirts into adoring throngs. He raised at least $21.5 million for the race, some $10 million of which came from his own pocket (a sum that represented about a third of his salary for the movie Terminator 3.)
All together, the candidates and the pro- and anti-recall campaigns raised at least $75 million.
The election was nearly derailed last month when a three-judge federal appeals court panel ordered the balloting postponed, perhaps until spring, because some counties planned to use the punch-card ballots that caused the recount mess in Florida in 2000. The court said tens of thousands of votes could go uncounted. But days later, an 11-judge panel of the same court unanimously ruled the election could go forward, saying too much time and money already had been spent on the election to stop it now.
While the field of replacement candidates included such entertaining players as Hustler publisher Larry Flynt and a porn actress who wanted to tax breast implants, to many Californians, it was serious business.
I think we could be setting a dangerous precedent that other states might follow
said Evelyn Collaco, 63, of San Ramon. She said she was no fan of Davis, but was voting no on recall and for Bustamante.
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