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The attention shifts toward the legislative session starting next week and away from the election as Gov. Bev Perdue releases here budget proposal this morning. Perdue will ask legislators to spend an additional $562 million on K-12 schools and increase the state sales tax in the $20.9 billion budget.

Republican lawmakers on Wednesday made it clear they weren’t interested, setting up a rematch of last year’s budget battles between the Democratic governor and the GOP-led legislature. Get more details here.

But before Jones Street consumes the news, here's more from Tuesday's election:

--Angry and frustrated, organizers of the opposition campaign vowed to use the momentum to continue to push for legal protection. Activists in Durham and Wilson kicked off a seven-day protest across the state by sending gay couples to apply for marriage licenses. All the while, amendment opponents are refusing to accept that the 61-39 percent loss reflects how people in North Carolina feel about the issue.

--More amendment news: President Barack Obama shifts his stance on gay marriage, a day after the vote. North Carolina is ridiculed in social networking and online sites for its vote. A move to uproot the Democratic convention from Charlotte because of the amendment won't happen. And columnist Barry Saunders asks who the amendment backers will target next.

There are slightly more than 6.2 million registered voters in the state; 507,655 have already voted. Now it’s everyone else’s chance. Polls open at 6:30 a.m. and close at 7:30 p.m. If you are in line by 7:30 p.m. you must be allowed to vote. Get the full voting primer here and check out the voter's guide to study up on the candidates.

Other political headlines:

--John Edwards trial Day 11 recap: During the early part of the day, it seemed as though a pendulum swung toward the defense team. Then before the trial broke for the day, the pendulum seemed to swing back toward the prosecution with testimony from Chapel Hill builder Tim Toben. He said Edwards knew details of the cross-country effort to hide Hunter that started weeks before the 2008 Iowa presidential caucuses. Read full coverage here.

--Columnist Barry Saunders: The Triangle, we’re told, has more Ph.D.s and college grads per square inch than any place on Earth, but a lot of people around here need some basic education in biology. To wit: further schooling is apparently needed to teach some of you that neither political party has a monopoly on virtue or vice, that liberals are no more libidinous than conservatives, that infidelitous Democrats are as plentiful as home-wrecking Republicans.

A final poll of likely North Carolina voters conducted over the weekend continues to give a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage and civil unions an easy margin of victory in Tuesday’s election while the Democratic contest for governor is tightening.

The referendum holds a 16-point advantage, 55 percent in favor and 39 percent against, according to the Public Policy Polling survey, a left-leaning Raleigh-based firm. In the Democratic gubernatorial race, Lt. Gov. Walter Dalton’s 10-point lead from a week ago whittled down to a 5-point advantage in the final days. The polls showed Dalton getting about 34 percent of the vote and rival Bob Etheridge taking 29 percent. Four other candidates all received 4 percent or less. Read the full story here.

More political headlines below. Click Read More.

The amendment banning civil unions and same-sex marriage has spurred grass-roots action throughout the state and has helped drive early voters to the polls in record numbers. It has also revealed generational and urban-rural divisions.

Turnout for early voting is high in places such as Mitchell and Alexander counties, which have large Republican majorities and where the amendment is expected to win easily, and in Durham and Orange counties, heavily Democratic counties with a high concentration of younger voters, where it is expected to lose. Read more here -- and get a list of top 10 early vote counties and an age breakdown of voters.

More political headlines:

--Long after the controversy over President Obama’s birthplace seemed settled, some Republican congressional candidates in North Carolina have brought new attention to the issue as they seek advantages in hard-fought primary races.

Richard Hudson told a Tea Party group in Rowan County recently that “there’s no question President Obama is hiding something on his citizenship.” And Hudson, former campaign manager to GOP gubernatorial candidate Pat McCrory, isn't the only one.

The early take from Day 10 in the John Edwards trial: The interior decorator who acted as the conduit for philanthropist Rachel "Bunny" Mellon to funnel $750,000 to Andrew Young, a political aide for John Edwards, said Friday that he also passed along notes from Young to an FBI agent investigating John Edwards.

Bryan Huffman said Friday morning that he forwarded to the FBI emails from Young soliciting questions that he could ask the former Democratic presidential candidate as part of a civil lawsuit filed in state court. Read the full story here.

Business owners snaked down a dim hallway in the state Industrial Commission’s headquarters Thursday, awaiting stern orders for failing to pay workers hurt on the job. It was an unprecedented day at the Industrial Commission, a little-known state agency that handles disputed workers’ compensation claims when people get hurt on the job. 

Following a News & Observer investigation, commission officials are dusting off opinions rendered years ago and demanding payment. In the coming months, hundreds of employers will be called to hearings to defend themselves and to explain how they will pay. More here.

More headlines:

--Former staffers have testified this week that John Edwards’ extramarital relationship was not such a well-kept secret. More Day 9 trial coverage: Bryan Huffman, 47, funneled checks for hundreds of thousands of dollars from wealthy Rachel “Bunny” Mellon to political aide Andrew Young.

The campaigns for and against the marriage amendment are taking center stage just days before the primary. The efforts are fueled by big national money. The debate is playing out in community forums, Facebook and websites far outside the traditional media. And even hair stylists are being enlisted to fight the referendum.

In Charlotte, a top Republican lawmaker said the amendment banning gay marriage and civil unions is "for the greater good." Rev. Billy Graham issued a statement favoring the ban. The wife of another GOP lawmaker is denying that she said the amendment is important to protecting the white race, according to the Winston-Salem Journal. 

In other political headlines:

--Elizabeth Edwards emerged as a central figure in Day 8 of the John Edwards trial, forcing daughter Cate Edwards to leave in tears at one point. The world is watching the trial. John Edwards was called "political roadkill" on Al Jazeera recently. And columnist Barry Saunders says the testimony of Andrew and Cheri Young makes them look as bad as Edwards.

An aide who traveled with John Edwards during 2005 and 2006 testified on Wednesday morning that he cautioned his boss on more than one occasion about Rielle Hunter, the woman who would become Edwards’ mistress and the source of his political downfall.

Josh Brumberger, now 33, recounted meeting Hunter in a New York hotel bar when she came to the table where he, Edwards and others were having drinks. Curious about her background, he did a Google search that turned up her personal Web site.

Brumberger did not like what he found. “Specifically, there was a lot of sex, drugs and rock and roll and a lot of astrology,” Brumberger said. “I’m pretty certain I told Mr. Edwards that Ms. Hunter looked a little nutty. I believe he agreed.” More from the trial's  Day 8.

House Speaker Thom Tillis said he heard rumors about an affair his former chief of staff had with a state lobbyist but Charles Thomas denied the relationship. Tillis, who bunks with Thomas in Raleigh, answered questions about the after Thomas' resignation last week for an affair with a homebuilders association lobbyist. Tillis also acknowledged a second staffer, Amy Hobbs, had a romantic relationship with a different lobbyist, Dean Plunkett, and would resign. Read the full story here.

Lots more political news:

-- A Charlotte area man is being questioned for firing a shotgun at an anti-amendment sign, which he recorded in a YouTube video that received widespread attention a week before the May 8 primary on the marriage referendum.

--Jurors at the John Edwards trial saw video on Tuesday afternoon of the house outside Chapel Hill where Edwards’ pregnant mistress, Rielle Hunter, lived for several months while hiding from National Enquirer reporters. Cheri Young, the wife of Edwards’ political aide Andrew Young, made the video in September 2008 while going through the two-story house in the Governors Club, a gated community near Chapel Hill. Day 7 Trial coverage here.

It was only a year-and-a-half ago that Republican U.S. Rep. Renee Ellmers was the long-shot candidate who rode into Washington on a wave of public discontent. The former nurse from Dunn’s message was that beltway politicians are out of touch with everyday Americans. Now, in her first re-election bid, five challengers want to kick her out of Washington. Three are Republicans. Read the full story here.

More politics: 

--A week before the May 8 primary, Lt. Gov. Walter Dalton opens a big lead in the polls and money race. Get the state of the race here.

--The four Republicans competing for the secretary of state job -- Mike Beitler, A.J. Daoud, Kenn Gardner and Ed Goodwin -- want to stretch the agency’s bounds beyond handling corporate records and use it to serve as a business ambassador to lure more companies to North Carolina.