During a special post-election edition of American Morning on early Wednesday morning, CNN correspondent Carol Costello seemed to be confused as to what California’s proposed Proposition 8 would do and hinted that she was opposed to the effort. The initiative would amend the state’s constitution to ban same-sex "marriage." Costello first stumbled as she tried to explain the proposition: "These are the results that we have -- voting yes means you -- you would overturn -- voting yes means there would be a ban on same-sex marriage -- that's 52%. The no votes have 48%." She then continued as to when the results would be certain, and gave a hint as to where she stood on the issue: "We probably won't be able to call that until much later this afternoon, although we do remain hopeful." [audio excerpt here]

Co-anchor John Roberts introduced Costello’s segment, which began 23 minutes into the 4 am Eastern hour of the CNN program, and stated how, besides the presidential race, "from same-sex marriage to abortion, there were some hot-button issues on state ballots across the country, and our Carol Costello has been tracking the results of those." Costello actually focused on the same-sex "marriage" ballot questions during her report and didn’t mention anything of the other issues.

The CNN correspondent first correctly described what Proposition 8 would do: "...[O]ut in California, they were talking very much about Proposition 8 -- that would be a measure that would ban same-sex marriage in the state of California." She then gave her confused description on what voting yes for it would do, versus voting no, and the percentages for each. After giving her "hopeful" statement, she then described the campaigns for and against the proposed initiative:

COSTELLO: You know, Proposition 8 was the most high profile ballot on -- was the most high profile initiative on the ballot in California. Opponents and supporters spent a whopping $80 million on this issue. Now, those who are in favor of same-sex marriage were hoping that liberal Democrats who came to the polls would overwhelmingly vote in their favor. But apparently, that did not happen, because Proposition 8 also drew the people that were for the ban.

Near the end of the segment, Costello and Roberts briefly discussed how the ballot proposals against same-sex "marriage" in Arizona and Florida and how those past "handily," and then went back to the specific issue of Proposition 8 and what the final results would be. Again, the CNN correspondent seemed confused as to what the proposition would do:

ROBERTS: You know what I’ll do is run the numbers on the ‘Magic Wall,’ as well, and see, you know, where the vote is still outstanding. That might give us some indication of whether or not that gap will narrow, or if it will stay about the same.

COSTELLO: As far as I know, the more conservative areas of California have not been counted as of yet, so it doesn't look good for Proposition 8.

Actually, the poll results did look good for Proposition 8, as she outlined above.

[Special thanks to MRC's Business and Media Institute for discovering this segment.]

—Matthew Balan is a news analyst at the Media Research Center.