Americans wait for voting at a polling station in Arlington County, Virginia State, Nov. 2, 2004. (Xinhua Photo)

Staff members verify identities of voters at a polling station in Arlington County, Virginia State, Nov. 2, 2004. (Xinhua Photo)

Election Day of the United States kicked off in Hart, a tiny mountain hamlet in the state of New Hampshire, early Tuesday, with the votes equally divided between incumbent President George W. Bush and Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry, local media reported.
Meanwhile, 26 registered voters in Dixville Notch, about 25 km from the Canadian border, also cast their ballots minutes later, with 19 votes going to Bush and seven to Kerry.
The tiny hamlets took advantage of a state election law that allows communities to close the polls after all registered voters have cast their ballots.
Voters in the country's 50 states and the District of Columbia will follow the two hamlets and cast votes to choose a president -- the chief executive of the US government and commander-in-chief of the US military.
According to the country's election system, Americans do not directly choose the president. Instead, after ballots are tallied in each state, state representatives, called electors, vote based on the state tallies in an Electoral College, a system which has been operating since 1788.
The number of a state's electoral votes equals the number of senators and House representatives combined from that state.
As the number of House representatives is based on the size of population of each state, the number of electors varies from state to state.
Besides voting for a president, voters will also choose a vice president, 11 governors, 34 senators and all the 435 members of the House of Representatives.
Running for the country's top job are Republican incumbent President Bush and his Democrat challenger, Massachusetts Senator Kerry. Bush won the presidential elections in 2000 and is now seeking reelection.
A CNN-USA Today-Gallup survey, released on the eve of the election, showed Bush and Kerry were still tied in public support - - 49 percent to 49 percent, after nearly eight months of head-to- head campaigning.
There are altogether 538 electors and a minimum of 270 electoral votes is necessary to win the Electoral College.
If no candidate receives a majority, the House of Representatives -- one of the two houses of the US Congress -- must determine the winner from the three candidates who received the most votes in the Electoral College.