For the second time in four years, SAG members have narrowly rejected a plan to consolidate their union with AFTRA into a single overarching performers guild.

The vote among SAG members fell just shy of the 60% majority needed to approve the consolidation of the two guilds into a new entity dubbed the Alliance of International Media Artists.

The vote results announced at about 10:30 p.m. Tuesday revealed that, with a near-record turnout for a SAG referendum, the merger proposal was defeated by the thinnest of margins among SAG voters, while AFTRA members voted overwhelmingly to support the merger.

"I am just so thrilled that (SAG) members chose to defeat this ill-conceived conglomerate plan that was being forced upon our union," said Valerie Harper, one of the leaders of the SaveSAG organization that campaigned hard against the merger. "We can do better."

Among SAG members, 57.8% of those who voted in the AIMA referendum voted in favor of the merger, but that was just more than 2% shy of the majority vote necessary for approval. Of the AFTRA members who cast ballots, 75.8% voted in favor of the consolidation, seen by many in SAG and AFTRA as a necessary step in reaction to the dramatic consolidation of media ownership during the past decade.

But those opposed to the union of the guilds argued that the consolidation would dilute SAG's bargaining power with media giants.

Of the 58,192 votes cast, 33,626 were in support of the consolidation, while 24,550 voted against the merger.

Nearly a month after the ballots were mailed out to SAG and AFTRA members, vote tallying was conducted all day Tuesday at the Radisson Wilshire Plaza in Los Angeles. In an echo of the 2000 presidential election returns in Florida, the tallying process stretched late into the night because of the deliberations by specially appointed committees regarding ballots that were rejected by the automated machine.

SAG has 98,000 members to AFTRA's 77,000 members, though about 44,000 performers maintain membership in both guilds.

In the 1999 attempt to combine SAG and AFTRA, 52% of SAG members rejected the proposed merger, while AFTRA members and SAG's national board endorsed the plan.

During the past three months, SAG president Melissa Gilbert, AFTRA president John Connolly and top executives Bob Pisano and Greg Hessinger pursued an aggressive educational campaign regarding the merger plan that included a nationwide tour. In April, 87% of SAG's national board voted to put consolidation to a membership vote, while 89 members of AFTRA's board supported the plan, and six voted in opposition.

At Tuesday night's press conference announcing the results, Gilbert, Connolly and other SAG and AFTRA board members were visibly dejected after losing what had been an emotionally charged campaign by a squeaker vote.

"Consolidation has been defeated by a minority of the members of the Screen Actors Guild, not withstanding that 57.78% of the membership believed that the union's best chance for success at the bargaining table was to join with AFTRA to form a united front," Gilbert said. "We shall now proceed to implement plans for SAG to continue operating alone."

When asked why the plan did not muster the majority needed for approval, Connolly cited the vigorous campaigning by antimerger forces.

"Fear is a powerful, powerful motivation," he said. "AFTRA has been here before, and like in 1999, we will move forward with purpose and clarity and do what is in the best interests of AFTRA members."

The antimerger forces were headed up by SAG treasurer Kent McCord, recording secretary Elliott Gould and board member Frances Fisher, who breathed new life into the moniker SaveSAG, the group that fought against the 1999 merger proposal.

The plan had been to create an umbrella organization -- AIMA -- composed of three semi-autonomous affiliates tailored to the needs of broadcasters, recording artists and actors: AFTRA, SAG and American Federation of Recording Artists. Each affiliate would have had its own respective board and officer posts. A 35-member board would have governed the umbrella organization with a 71-member SAG board, a 30-member AFTRA board and a 23-member AFRA board.

Proponents of consolidation used a three-pronged argument: That a consolidated union will end a rift over which guild has jurisdiction over digital television production, streamline administrative costs and provide added bargaining leverage against the studios and networks.

Opponents insisted that the plan would have resulted in a loss of direct fiscal control over SAG's budget and have argued that the SAG affiliate will be relegated to a "glorified committee." They also accused SAG leadership of squelching the opposition argument by refusing to include a minority report in the referendum even though the traditionally required 25% threshold of board opposition was not met.

The proponents' endorsee list included George Clooney, Kevin Spacey, Willie Nelson, Angela Bassett, Jackson Browne, Nicolas Cage, Kevin Costner, Bob Edwards, Billy Crystal, Janeane Garofalo, Danny Glover and Tom Hanks.

Those listed as being in SaveSAG's corner included Holly Hunter, Frances Fisher, Esai Morales, Seymour Cassell, Tom Bosley, Loni Anderson, Ed McMahon, Valerie Harper, Ed Harris, Rob Schneider, Joely Fisher, Gavin McLeod, Estelle Getty, Joe Bologna, Michael Chiklis, Dom DeLuise, Gould, Scott Wilson, Lou Ferrigno, Tom Bower and Suzanne Somers.