Villagers in Dixville Notch, New Hampshire, kick off US elections with midnight votes
4/11/2008 15:34
Over a dozen voters from Dixville Notch, New Hampshire, kicked off the
day-long polling in the US presidential elections as they gathered in Dixville
Notch , New Hampshire at 00:00 eastern US time (0500 GMT) today to cast their
votes for a new president.
The polls, which officially closed minutes later,
showed that 15 votes went for Democratic ticket Barack Obama and Joe
Biden.
Republican ticket John McCain and Sarah Palin grabbed 6 votes, while
Ralph Nader and Matt Gonzalez, an independent ticket, got no votes. 21 eligible
voters cast their votes.
Dixville Notch, a small village located in the far
north of New Hampshire, is well known for its longstanding middle-of-the-night
vote in the US presidential elections, a symbolic event which marks the casting
of the first ballots and the elections' initial results.
Hart's Location, a
small town in New Hampshire, also shares Dixville Notch's enviable status of
being one of the first places to cast votes in the elections.
But for
millions of other eligible voters, polling stations will not open until at least
hours later. A few voting districts in neighboring Vermont are scheduled to open
at 5:00 a.m. EST (1000 GMT), followed by the remainder of eastern states where
polling stations open at 6:00 a.m. (1100 GMT) or 7:00 a.m. (1200 GMT).
Voting
across the continental United States will begin between 8:00 and 11:00 a.m. EST
(1300 and 1600 GMT). Alaska and Hawaii will be the last two states to join in,
with voting to begin at 1600 GMT and 1700 GMT respectively.
Xinhua
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