Many of these are still unsettled as of this writing (I'll update in the morning), but some interesting stuff going on:

While the general election might not break partisan gridlock in Congress, it could result in historic changes for U.S. social policy: Several states had a chance to be the first to approve same-sex marriage by popular vote and to legalize recreational use of marijuana.

Dating back to 1998, same-sex marriage has been rejected in all 32 states that have held popular votes on the issue. Gay-rights advocates believed they had a chance to break that streak as Maine, Maryland and Washington voted on ballot measures to legalize same-sex marriage, and Minnesota voted on whether to place a ban on gay marriage in the state constitution.

Incomplete returns showed close contests in Maine and Maryland.

Marijuana legalization was on the ballot in Washington, Oregon and Colorado; each measure would allow adults to possess small amounts of pot under a regimen of state regulation and taxation. The Oregon proposal had lagged, but the Washington and Colorado measures were believed to have a decent chance of passage.

If approved, the measures would set up a direct challenge to federal drug law.

In Massachusetts, voters approved a measure to allow marijuana use for medical reasons, joining 17 other states. Arkansas voters were deciding on a similar measure that would make it the first Southern state in that group.

In California, voters were deciding whether to repeal the state’s death penalty. If the measure prevailed, the more than 720 inmates on death row there would have their sentences converted to life in prison.

While 17 states have ended capital punishment, most did so through legislative action. Only in Oregon, in 1964, did voters choose to repeal the death penalty; they later reversed themselves to reinstate it.

In all, there were 176 measures on the ballots Tuesday in 38 states, according to the Initiative and Referendum Institute at the University of Southern California.

Maine’s referendum on same-sex marriage marked the first time that gay-rights supporters put the issue to a popular vote. They collected enough signatures over the summer to schedule the vote, hoping to reverse the outcome of a 2009 referendum that quashed a gay-marriage law enacted by the Legislature.

In both Maryland and Washington, gay-marriage laws were approved by lawmakers and signed by the governors earlier this year, but opponents gathered enough signatures to challenge the laws.

These are the ones that were called by midnight:

• Here's one that will make a lot of people happy: Medical marijuana passed in Massachusetts. (Guess we know what Scott Brown will be doing about that post-election depression!)

• In a real squeaker, marriage equality passed in Maryland, and that make Gov. Martin O'Malley a very serious contender for higher office, since he expended a lot of his political capital to make this happen.

Maryland also voted to pass the state's DREAM Act and expand gambling in the state.

• The Michigan Clean Energy Mandate Initiative which would require 25% renewables by 2025, went down.

• Oklahoma voters banned affirmative action.

• In Florida, voters soundly rejected funding for religious schools, to keep the mandatory requirement for health insurance, and a bill that would ban insurance coverage of abortion in state health benefit plans.

• Alabama embraced a plan that would reject mandatory insurance (aka Obamacare).

• North Dakota passed a smoking ban.

DOWNLOAD (317)

PLAY (568)

When President Obama opened his Online Town Hall session today, he offered some generic remarks about why the White House was undertaking this:

Now, I'm looking forward to taking your questions and hearing your thoughts and concerns. Because what matters to you and your families and what people in Washington are focused on isn't always one and the same thing.

He apparently forgot this when the questions from the American public came in and the votes were tallied, because one of the issues that came rising to the surface was marijuana legalization, as Politico reports:

Given the opportunity to say what’s really on their minds without going through the filter of the mainstream media, people “buzzed up” a series of questions that seemed to suggest broad interest in legalizing marijuana and taxing it.

In this moment of national economic crisis, the top four questions under the heading of “Financial security” concerned marijuana; on the budget, people voted up questions about marijuana to positions 1-4; marijuana was in the first and third positions under “jobs”; people boosted a plug for legalizing marijuana to No. 2 under “health care reform.” And questions about decriminalizing pot occupied spots 1 and 2 under “green jobs and energy.”

After taking questions lower on the list, Obama addressed the pot issue head on, noting the huge number of questions about marijuana legalization and remarking with a chuckle, “I don't know what that says about the online audience."

"The answer is no, I don't think that is a good strategy to grow our economy," he said, as the audience in the room applauded and joined him in a laugh.

Politico tries to fob the intense interest in the matter off on NORML activists, but that overlooks the real dynamic: the "war on drugs" is a kitchen-table issue that affects millions of Americans in their homes, especially as we watch the tremendous waste of national resources spent criminalizing people who need medical treatment, and we witness the costs to our national and personal security in the form of the raging drug war on the Mexican border.

Indeed, just yesterday Secretary of State Clinton just observed that "Our insatiable demand for illegal drugs fuels the drug trade" and that "what we have been doing has not worked and it is unfair for our incapacity... to be creating a situation where people are holding the Mexican government and people responsible." At what point will we finally wake up and recognize the high cost of an ineffectual drug policy maintained purely out of political cowardice?

It's understandable that Obama wants to keep his eye on the ball and not let his agenda get derailed by a national argument about drugs. But dealing intelligently and effectively with drugs in the end is part of that economic and national-security picture too -- perhaps not as big a driver as health care or energy, but it plays a role. The president would be wise to heed his own words about listening to what people outside the Beltway are actually saying to him.

Meanwhile, as Jeralyn notes, the Obama administration has already gone back on its promise that it will cease raiding medical-marijuana operations ...