Local experts said the groundswell of Merced County voters who supported Proposition 8, which bans gay marriage, is partly due to heavy participation of churches in the election.
They also cited such factors as the effectiveness of the Yes on 8 campaign's television advertisements.
Regardless of how Merced County residents voted, the battle over whether same-sex couples can tie the knot is far from over.
The California Secretary of State reported Wednesday that 52.5 percent of voters (about 5.3 million people) backed Prop. 8, while 47.5 percent of voters opposed it. Those results were released with 99.5 percent of the state's precincts reporting.
In Merced County, about 71 percent of voters (37,455) voted yes on Prop. 8, while about 29 percent (15,210) voted no, according to results from the Merced County Clerk's Office.
Simon Weffer, an assistant sociology professor at UC Merced, said churches locally and statewide played an active role in galvanizing yes voters on Prop. 8.
Yes on 8 was backed by a coalition of religious and conservative groups, including the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, the Knights of Columbus and the California Catholic Conference.
"In the Central Valley generally and Merced in particular, the churches really got the vote out," Weffer said. "The Yes on 8 folks got out, and got out there early. Their minds were made up early, and I just don't think it was going to change."
Weffer also noticed the prevalence of Yes on 8 television advertisements earlier than those from gay-marriage supporters. Several of those advertisements featured a now notorious clip from a speech by San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom, a staunch supporter of gay marriage, bellowing the words, "Whether you like it or not!"
"I think Prop. 8 found a better way, earlier, to sway peoples' votes," Weffer said. "The Yes on 8 ad campaign, in terms of television advertisements, started probably about a month or six weeks ago. But it really wasn't until the last week or so (before the election) that we started seeing No on 8 ads. And I wonder if that had an effect."
The election was also an obvious illustration of how Merced County voters tend to be conservative on controversial social issues, such as gay marriage and abortion. Weffer pointed out that Merced County voters also supported Proposition 4, a ballot measure for parental notification about abortion, by a large margin. About 62 percent of Merced County voters supported Prop. 4, while 37 percent noted no.
State voters ultimately turned down Prop. 4 by 52.1 to 47.9 percent. "It's not as big as Prop. 8, but I think with those two ballot measures, you see this sorts of conservative trend with Merced County. At least on these sort of social and moral issues," Weffer said.
Even though Merced County voters may have supported Props. 4 and 8, that doesn't mean they voted as complete conservatives. About 53 percent of Merced County voters supported Sen. Barack Obama for president, compared to the 45 percent who supported John McCain. "There's that interesting dichotomy that people saw how they were going to vote for president, and how they were going to vote for these specific ballot measures that are much more locally impactful," Weffer said.
Thomas Hansford, a UC Merced associate professor who studies election patterns, said support for Prop. 8 was high among black voters, who turned out in large numbers to vote in the presidential election. "African-Americans really stood out as being predominantly supportive of Prop. 8, based on the exit polls," Hansford said.
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