Texas voters will act on (or ax) countless issues and candidates today plus nine proposed constitutional amendments, including a proposal forbidding gay marriage.

Secretary of State Roger Williams expects at least 16 percent of registered voters to turn out -- potentially the biggest showing in an election without candidates for state office on the ballot since one in four voters took part in the 1991 referendum authorizing a state lottery.

Slightly more than 12 percent of voters cast ballots in 2003, the last year changes were whittled into the constitution, which dates to the 1870s.

More than 400,000 voters already have cast ballots in person or by mail in the state's 15 largest counties, which is 5 percent of the nearly 8 million voters in those counties. Early voting, which ended Friday, proved most prevalent in Travis County, where about 10.5 percent of nearly 540,000 registered voters acted. Williamson ran second among the counties, with 9.5 percent of 196,000 registered voters turning out.

In local elections, Georgetown voters will choose among three candidates to serve two years remaining in a vacated school board post. Voters also are asked to weigh $97 million in bonds to build a ninth-grade center that eventually could expand into the district's second high school and to build an elementary school once enrollment warrants.

In Round Rock, four candidates vie for the Place 6 City Council seat empty since July. Leander voters will resolve a two-person council race and decide on two dozen city charter amendments, including proposals to lengthen council terms to three years and to clarify anti-nepotism rules for council members and staff.

San Marcos voters will fill a City Council position and decide on $12.2 million in bond requests, including $2 million to buy 251 acres of parkland. City leaders wanted to build a hotel and conference center on part of the land above headwaters of the San Marcos River last year, but environmental concerns drove the project to a spot near Interstate 35.

Nearly $3 million in bonds would pay for a new fire station, and another $1.2 million in bonds are sought for hike-and-bike trails along several routes including Aquarena Springs Drive from Interstate 35 to Sessoms Drive.

The proposal on the state ballot to add an amendment to the Texas Constitution limiting marriage to between one man and one woman continued to fire activists Monday.

A group opposed to Proposition 2 asked the secretary of state to prevent election judges at polls from giving voters a leaflet listing pros and cons of the nine proposed amendments.

The Free Market Foundation, a Plano-based group, says it has sent 3 million copies of the handout to every county statewide. The foundation leaflet doesn't take a direct position on any proposal, though it highlights the marriage amendment. "For the first time ever," the sentence states, "Texans will have the opportunity to vote on the definition of marriage in Texas!"

Kelly Shackelford, the foundation's president, said: "We would never encourage any election judge to pass out anything, (though) people have every right to take them into the voting booth."

Scott Haywood, a spokesman for Williams, the secretary of state, said Maxey's concerns are under review, adding that election judges "cannot hand out anything not required by law. We have reports of it happening, but no conclusive evidence."

Shackelford called Maxey's request to Williams a pre-election stunt intended to deter voters from the amendment, which follows on a 2003 law voiding marriages between people of the same sex. Voters in 18 states have placed gay-marriage bans into their state constitutions.

Forces battling over the amendment have traded charges of deception since a No Nonsense spinoff launched automated telephone calls two weeks ago warning that a judge could read the proposal as outlawing all marriages, a result most legal observers consider unlikely.

Pro-amendment forces have since funded several automated calls. Some 800,000 Hispanic and 300,000 African American households fielded calls Monday encouraging support, Shackelford said.

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