The Maine Warden Service and the Piscataquis County Sheriff's Department searched for Edwin Howard, who was last seen at his home at about 10 p.m. Wednesday. He was not home when his wife got up Thursday morning.

The Warden Service learned that Howard was at Eastern Maine Medical Center in Bangor. No other information was immediately available.

LEWISTON — Despite recent polling that indicated strong support for keeping Maine's law allowing same-sex marriage, voters rejected it by a margin of about 53 percent to 47 percent, according to unofficial tallies. Local political analysts speculated several factors may have played into the discrepancy, including a last-minute shift in support.

In an election that had been billed for weeks as too close to call, Maine's often unpredictable voters repealed a state law Tuesday that would have allowed same-sex couples to wed.

Unofficial tallies from 93 percent of Maine's precincts show the side that called for a people's veto with 52.9 percent of the vote.

Early predictions of 35 percent of voter turnout - heavy for an off-year vote - were upgraded on Tuesday as long lines formed at polls across Maine. Voters ended up repealing Maine's gay marriage law.

Even with incomplete vote figures, the turnout was at least 53 percent of eligible voters. Secretary of State Matthew Dunlap says the figure could grow to around 60 percent - approaching what Maine sees in a major election year.

With more than 200 supporters as a backdrop, leaders of the campaign that sought unsuccessfully to prevent the scuttling of Maine's gay marriage law said they are not quitting what they termed a civil rights struggle. But what form their effort will take is not yet known.

LEWISTON — Gay marriage appeared in danger in Maine in a closely watched referendum Tuesday that the nation's gay rights movement had hoped would yield a breakthrough victory at the ballot box.

Voters were asked to decide whether to repeal or affirm a state law that would allow gay couples to wed. The law was passed by the Legislature in May, but never took effect because of a petition drive by conservatives.

With 84 percent of precincts reporting, the question of whether to repeal the law was passing 53 percent to 47 percent.

Instead, they went home at midnight, dejected and near tears after a failed bid to make Maine the first state to approve same-sex marriage at the ballot box.

511 of 608 precincts - 84 percent

Yes, 265,189 - 53 percent

No, 237,638 - 47 percent

Question 2-Cut Auto Excise Tax Citizen Initiative

511 of 608 precincts - 84 percent

Yes, 124,975 - 26 percent

x-No, 357,761 - 74 percent

Question 3-Repeal School ConsolidationLaw Citizen Initiative

511 of 608 precincts - 84 percent

Yes, 195,221 - 42 percent

Maine voters have rejected a referendum that would have placed limits on increases in state and municipal government spending and taxes.

David Crocker, chairman of the Taxpayer Bill of Rights campaign, conceded the race at 10:30 p.m.

The measure would have held government spending increases to the rate of inflation plus population growth, with voter approval required to exceed those limits.

But medical marijuana advocates say Maine won't become like Los Angeles, where hundreds of dispensaries have popped up and come under critical scrutiny.

Ethan Nadelmann of the New York-based Drug Policy Alliance says Los Angeles is the "wild west West" of marijuana dispensaries.

Secretary of State Matthew Dunlap originally projected that 35 percent of voting age residents would turn out at polling places on Tuesday. Dunlap now says it appears that the turnout is outpacing those projections.

Another sign is absentee ballots. More than 100,000 people had voted by absentee ballots or early voting before Election Day.

Harvard officials announced Monday that Stetson Wind II facility near Danforth, Maine, expected to go online in the middle of next year, will eventually provide more than 10 percent of the university's electricity needs.

Federal environmental regulators say that will make Harvard the largest purchaser of wind power by a university or college in New England.

In a referendum that is being closely watched around the country and has drawn millions in out-of-state dollars, Maine voters will decide Tuesday whether to repeal a state law that would allow same-sex couples to marry.

For weeks, Martha Truscott and Diane Jellison watched over the dozen or so cats living in the abandoned house on Lewiston Junction Road in Auburn. Nearly all were kittens - some seemed as old as six months, others as young as four weeks — all apparently born from the same mother, the only adult cat in the group. Skinny and starving, they wandered in and out of the house through broken windows. The body of one cat lay out front.

"Nothing's worse than what you see over there," Jellison said.

Except, possibly, what's across the river.