Last week, voters in California were split on a measure that would impose a $1 per pack excise tax on cigarettes. Despite more than $60 million in advertising pumped into calling attention to the measure, referred to as Proposition 29, voters weren’t swayed one way or the other: the vote remained split up until the last count.
According to the “Semi-Election Results” as reported by the California Secretary of State, with 100.0% (21,989 of 21,993) precincts partially or fully reporting as of June 6, 2012, 3:39 a.m., the no votes (1,957,917) outweighed the yes votes (1,894,757) by a margin of 63,160 – less than a 2% difference. That makes the vote still “too close to call” since, according to the California Secretary of State, many ballots are not counted on Election Day; county officials must report their results to the Secretary of State by July 6.
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