Updated 11/2/04 11:15 PM
Buried among 16 ballot measures and a nail-biter of a presidential race, Prop 1A didn’t exactly register high on the list of priorities of voters here. In fact, most Californians went to the polls Tuesday having never heard of the complex initiative that promised to change the way state and local entities provide services to their residents.

They call themselves the Phone Corps, a ragtag army of civilian soldiers focused intently on the battlegrounds to the north and the east -- the swing states.

Updated Nov. 2, 2004 9:44 PM
BERKELEY -- The youth vote was expected to turn out in record numbers this year, but history has repeated itself and young voters stayed at home. Only ten percent of the electorate fell between the ages of 18 and 24 - the same proportion as in 2000, according to exit polls conducted for the Associated Press.

Updated 11/2/04 9:13 PM
SAN FRANCISCO - After facing long lines at their polling location, residents of the Haight Ashbury neighborhood, known for its political activism and progressive thinking, faced a long and potentially confusing ballot once they got inside the voting booth today.

California's emergency hospitals, community clinics, and the 911 telephone systems would receive additional funding through a telephone surcharge if voters approve Proposition 67 today.

OAKLAND -- Christina Cummings, 15, said she started working with New Voters are Rising, a nonpartisan voter registration project, because her mom signed her up. All summer she strolled the Bay Area malls, canvassed at events like the UniverSoul Circus and walked Oakland's precincts registering citizens to vote.

OAKLAND -- Ramona Garcia has spent months canvassing and calling her East Oakland neighbors to encourage them to vote yes on Measure Y, which will fund additional police officers and crime-prevention programs. Yet come Tuesday, Garcia will be unable to cast her own vote.

BERKELEY -- At first, the August 1980 murders of Keith and Patty Harrington seemed random. It took 20 years for investigators to link their deaths to a brutal string of murders in the Bay Area and Orange County. Using DNA samples taken at the scene, investigators determined that the Harringtons were victims of a murderer dubbed the original Nightstalker.

OAKLAND--It was 10:15 pm on a mid-October Friday in East Oakland’s Patrol District Three, and for Officer William Bacon, “Dogwatch” had already gotten off to a bad start. Barely an hour into the night patrol, Bacon arrived at the corner of Foothill and Cole, where 57 year-old James Lancaster was sprawled out in a liquor store parking lot. Crimson rivulets of blood trickled out of the back of Lancaster’s head, braiding down the pavement and pooling in the cracks.

SAN FRANCISCO -- On his wedding day, Jim Maloney thought he was going to a gay rights protest at City Hall. Instead, he and Andrew Nance, his partner of 15 years, went home with a marriage license. The pair was one of nearly 4,000 to receive a license last winter when Mayor Gavin Newsom began marrying same-sex couples.

SAN FRANCISCO -- Voters in the most liberal part of what is arguably the most liberal city in the country face a plethora of progressive choices today for San Francisco City Supervisor. Twenty two, to be exact.

OAKLAND -- On the last Friday evening before the election in Oakland's Chinatown, the streets looked deserted. Shopkeepers had already brought in the produce that lined the sidewalks earlier in the day.

OAKLAND -- When Arthur O'Neal first came to Oakland from rural Arkansas in 1959, California was full of surprises. The Spanish names were new to him — he pronounced Vallejo as "Valley-Joe." He went from making $6 a week on a farm back home to $1.75 an hour on a garbage truck here. And in 1960, at the age of 31, he voted for the first time.