enlarge Jack Milton/Staff Photographer

Traice Reed and Alison Smith attend a rally organized by No on 1/Protect Maine Equality on Monday in Portland’s Monument Square. About 400 supporters gathered for the noon event.

enlarge Jack Milton/Staff Photographer

Sam Parker of Portland, a volunteer for the No on 1/Protect Marriage Equality campaign, speaks to a crowd at a noontime rally in Portland’s Monument Square on Monday.

enlarge David Leaming/Morning Sentinel

Motorists in Waterville pass a signs in favor of repealing Maine’s same-sex marriage law. Stand for Marriage Maine didn’t organize any big events on Monday.

enlarge Gregory Rec/Staff Photographer

Doug King, a staffer with Stand for Marriage Maine, works in its Yarmouth office on Monday. The campaign had volunteers going door-to-door across the state and working the phones.

enlarge John Ewing/Staff Photographer

Scarborough voters went to Town Hall last week to cast ballots early. It was one of many communities that offered voting in advace of Election Day today.

GET RESULTS

Be sure to log on to this site tonight for live election results.

Today, every state in the union will be looking toward Maine.

For months, the state's debate over same-sex marriage has dominated its news and politics.

Among seven ballot questions, Question 1 has stood out: "Do you want to reject the new law that lets same-sex couples marry and allows individuals and religious groups to refuse to perform these marriages?"

Today, voters will answer that question at the polls.

While five other states allow same-sex marriage, Maine's is the first statewide vote that follows a legislative action on the issue.

As such, it has drawn the attention of national newspapers like The New York Times and the Washington Post. Network news programs have focused segments on Question 1.

Secretary of State Matthew Dunlap predicted voter turnout of 35 percent – about in the middle of past turnouts in off-year elections. The number of Mainers voting early with absentee ballots has surpassed the numbers for past off-year elections, according to town and city clerks around the state.

Today's weather is expected to be a repeat of Monday's – sunny and seasonable – perfect for heavy voter turnout. Both campaigns were hard at work right to the end to make sure they got as many of those votes as possible.

No on 1/Protect Maine Equality, the group that is fighting the repeal effort and supporting same-sex marriage, held a noontime rally in Portland's Monument Square on Monday, drawing 400-plus supporters.

Those who gathered held "No on 1" signs and set up big signs facing Congress Street traffic that read "Let Love Win!" and "Marriage – Let's Have More."

No on 1 campaign manager Jesse Connolly pushed the crowd to vote, and take others to the polls with them.

That was the overall push for the day, Connolly said later.

"We're trying to get as big of a turnout as we can," he said. "We want to turn supporters into voters."

Statewide, campaigners were canvassing neighborhoods, knocking on doors and dropping campaign literature, and making phone calls to get out the vote, said Connolly.

On the other side of the debate, Stand for Marriage Maine didn't organize any big events or rallies, said spokesman Scott Fish. "What we do have are lots of volunteers working statewide as individuals or small groups."

Stand for Marriage Maine had volunteers going door-to-door across the state and working the phones, said Fish. The campaign also was attempting to respond to reporters from across the country who planned to cover election night returns in Maine.

Stand for Marriage Maine launched a new radio ad Monday, trying to get traction on an issue that arose late in the campaign.

A complaint was filed against a Nokomis Regional High School guidance counselor, Don Mendell of Palmyra, because he appeared in a television ad against same-sex marriage. The complaint was filed by another guidance counselor.

"While Mr. Mendell is entitled to his own personal opinion," the complaint says, "he does not have the right as a licensed social worker to make public comments that can endanger or promote discrimination."

The new ad refers to the complaint and says again that if the same-sex marriage law is allowed to stand, homosexual marriage will be taught in Maine schools.

Fish said the complaint against Mendell should be "chilling to anybody in Maine that has to go to the state for a license."

Connolly reiterated Monday that the No on 1 campaign had nothing to do with the complaint against Mendell.

"We totally don't think anyone should be fired for speaking out on any side of this issue," he said.

Connolly pointed to a recent story in the Lewiston Sun Journal that reported on a Catholic woman who was dismissed by her pastor as a lector and Eucharistic minister because of a letter she wrote to the paper supporting same-sex marriage.

Staff Writer Matt Wickenheiser can be contacted at 791-6316 or at: mwickenheiser@pressherald.com