NEW YORK - Voters around New York decided a spate of local races and one statewide ballot measure Tuesday on an Election Day that drew a surprising amount of nasty rhetoric at the county level because of the governor's plan to give driver's licenses to illegal immigrants.

No statewide offices were up for election, but Democratic Gov. Eliot Spitzer's license plan has become such a hot-button issue that it managed to spill into county clerk, legislature and supervisor races that rarely make headlines.

With their base so riled up by the proposal, Republicans sought to take advantage of the license controversy by labeling Democrats as weak on terrorism.

In Monroe County, Republicans sent out a flier warning in bold red letters that “Democrat county legislators want to make it easier for illegals and terrorists to get driver's licenses!” The flier includes a menacing rifle-toting man in a turban and a driver's license photograph of a man in Arab headdress.

Democrats denounced the campaign as blatantly offensive.

Republicans on Long Island received a little star power on the eve of the election when Rudy Giuliani showed up at rallies, saying a big GOP victory Tuesday would only bolster his campaign during the state presidential primary in February.

A hotly contested race for Staten Island district attorney was the only election to get much attention in New York City. Incumbent Daniel Donovan Jr. cruised to re-election, despite a little late drama brought on by the legal troubles of the teenage grandson of Borough President James P. Molinaro.

Donovan, Molinaro's former deputy, handed the teenager's assault case to a special prosecutor from Manhattan to avoid a possible conflict of interest.

This infuriated Molinaro, a longtime Conservative Party member, who turned around and endorsed Donovan's opponent.

Molinaro said his grandson suffered an unusually harsh punishment because the case was transferred, leading to what he called a “travesty of justice.”

The only statewide ballot question will lead to a different source of tap water for 125 residents of a hamlet in upstate New York.

The measure asked New Yorkers if the Adirondack hamlet of Raquette Lake can continue to use a well drilled in the state's forest preserve or if the 125 people who live there have to go back to using amber-colored water that became unsafe to drink after it was treated.

The reservoir water stained clothes and left white bathtubs and toilets the color of maple wood. When treated with chlorine, organic material in the water created elevated levels of a carcinogen.

The constitutional amendment would allow the state to trade 1 acre of forest preserve in Hamilton County, where a clean water source is located, for 12 acres of land that is at least equal in value. The Raquette Lake reservoir would be abandoned as a source of drinking water.

The measure overwhelmingly passed.

Three mayoral races have received attention - in Niagara Falls, Utica and Mount Vernon.

In Mount Vernon, longtime Mayor Ernest Davis lost the primary to Westchester County legislator Clinton Young by a mere 380 votes after several heated exchanges on the campaign trail over the city's crime and drug problem.

But two weeks after Young defeated Davis - and called some of his supporters “jackasses” - Davis said residents had beseeched him to keep running.

He is running Tuesday on minor-party lines.

Young said he could give Mount Vernon, a city of about 70,000 just north of the Bronx, a better image.

The city's crime problem made national news on Halloween when a security guard was shot and killed after confronting egg-throwing teenagers.

In Niagara Falls, two former members of the City Council were competing to become mayor: Democrat Paul Dyster and Republican Candra Thomason. Dyster won; not on the ballot was incumbent Vincenzo Anello, who was disqualified by petition problems.

In Utica, former two-time mayor Ed Hanna, 85, was running as an independent against incumbent Republican Mayor Tim Julian and David Roefaro, a Democratic city councilman. Roefaro upset the incumbent.

The colorful, outspoken Hanna - who briefly fired the city's entire public works department during his first term in the 1970s - resigned in 2000 as mayor, facing a sexual harassment lawsuit from four male city employees.