Voters Decide on Assisted Suicide, Guns, Drugs

PORTLAND, Ore. (Reuters) Voters in Oregon went to county courthouses and
other drop sites Tuesday to submit final ballots in an election that will
determine the fate of the state's precedentsetting assisted suicide law.

While Oregonians completed the votebymail election, voters in neighboring
Washington state went to the polls to decide hotly contested issues
involving guns, drugs and gay rights, while in Maine voters were to decide
proposed timber rules that have divided environmentalists.

In Houston, affirmative action was on the ballot as voters decided whether
to retain a program that sets goals for the awarding of city contracts to
minority and womenowned firms.

Oregon Measure 51 gives voters the chance to reconsider their 1994 decision
making the state the world's first jurisdiction to allow doctors to help
their terminally ill patients commit suicide by prescribing a lethal dose
of drugs.

The law originally passed by a 5149 percent margin but never went into
effect because of litigation that finally was cleared last month, when the
Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal challenging its validity.

Latest polls indicate voters favor retaining the measure by a nearly 21
margin. Nearly half the state's 1.9 million voters had already cast their
ballots by Monday, and unofficial results were expected Tuesday shortly
after 8 p.m. PST (11 p.m. EST), when all ballots are due.

In Washington, voters face eight statewide issues, with the most prominent
four nicknamed "guns, ganja, gays and gums."

The National Rifle Association has poured some $2 million into its effort
to defeat Measure 676, which would require trigger locks on handguns and
safety courses for their owners. Microsoft Corp. Chairman Bill Gates is
among the prominent supporters of the initiative.

Measure 685, supported by billionaire financier George Soros among others,
would permit the medical use of marijuana and other drugs while allowing
several hundred drug offenders to be freed from prison.

Other initiatives would prohibit job discrimination against gays and
lesbians and permit dental hygienists to go into business on their own.

In heavily forested Maine, voters will decide on new logging rules backed
by the paper industry and some but not all environmentalists. The
bill would limit clearcutting but is opposed by some green groups that had
sought a complete ban on clearcutting in a losing ballot initiative last
year.