AUGUSTA -- Surprised clerks in Maine's biggest cities and smallest towns reported massive turnout more typical of a presidential election for Tuesday's statewide referendums.

Secretary of State Matthew Dunlap originally projected 35 percent of voting-age residents would turn out at polling places. He later amended that and said turnout would be higher.

In Bangor, City Clerk Patti Dubois said turnout was nearly 50 percent.

In Augusta, scores of voters dismayed by long lines turned away before casting ballots.

In South Portland, heavier-than-expected turnout led to a shortage of ballots. City Clerk Susan Mooney said she had to send more than 1,000 photocopied ballots to polling places, hampering the final vote tally.

In Palermo -- a Waldo County town of 1,220 -- Town Clerk Sheila McCarty said turnout had "broken all records."

"We had been told to expect maybe two- to three-hundred voters and instead we got 735," McCarty said. "We came close to running out of ballots."

In Hallowell, 219 voters took part in an early-voting pilot program that helped boost turnout overall to 1,446 residents -- nearly 71 percent, City Clerk Deanna Hallett said.

Gay marriage was the top item on the state ballot but residents also voted on tax-related referendums and proposals calling for the repeal of the state's school district consolidation law and an expansion of the state's medical marijuana law.