North Carolina voters will approve
Amendment One, according to new analysis published in The New York
Times on Friday.
If approved on Tuesday, Amendment One
would bar the state from recognizing the relationships of gay and
lesbian couples with marriage, civil unions and possibly domestic
partnerships.
“Both recent polls of the state and
an analysis of past ballot initiatives in other states suggest that
the measure, Amendment 1, is likely to pass, although there is
ambiguity over the outcome of voter confusion about what the
amendment seeks to achieve,” statistician Nate
Silver wrote, referring to voter confusion on whether the
amendment would also ban civil unions for gay couples, instead of
just marriage.
A model first published last year which
projects support for such bans based on a state's religious
participation and whether the initiative would ban civil unions in
addition to gay marriage suggests the amendment is likely to pass by
7 to 19 percentage points.
Silver offers two version of the model
based on the rate of acceptance for gay unions.
Amendment One passes by 19 points when
a linear rate of approval is applied and by 7 points when an
accelerated rate is applied.