Tiny New Hampshire hamlets set US Election Day rolling
Trump leads Clinton 32-25 as the results of first ballots are counted; voting elsewhere to begin at 6 a.m.
Donald Trump was off to a very early lead in the 2016 presidential election, winning the voters of three New Hampshire precincts by a 32-25 margin over Hillary Clinton.
Polls in the tiny New Hampshire towns of Dixville Notch, Hart’s Location and Millsfield opened just after midnight Tuesday and closed as soon as everyone had voted. Those die-hard voters were proud to have the first word on the big vote.
Dixville Notch has had the honor of launching the voting, symbolically, since 1960, and at the stroke of midnight Tuesday seven people in the tiny New Hampshire village cast their ballots.
A man named Clay Smith was the first of the seven residents — five men and two women — to vote. An eighth person cast an absentee ballot.
The tally was announced in a matter of minutes: four votes for Clinton and two for Trump.
Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson won one vote, and there was a write-in vote for Mitt Romney, the Republican who lost to incumbent President Barack Obama in 2012.
In Hart’s Location, Clinton led Trump 17 to 14. In Millsfield, however, Trump was the overwhelming favorite, with a 16-4 edge.
In total Johnson picked up three votes. Bernie Sanders, John Kasich and Romney also got write-in votes.
Nancy DePalma, a hotel worker voting in Dixville for the first time, said she voted for Clinton.
“I believe she’s a strong person. She’s got the experience. I think she’s going to lead our country in the right direction,” DePalma told AFP.
She said she had voted for Sanders, the progressive senator from neighboring Vermont, in the Democratic primaries.
Another voter, Peter Johnson, who has cast his ballot there since 1982, said there is a populist movement spreading around the world and that no matter who wins the election, Trump “has done well for this country.”
Under New Hampshire state law, communities with fewer than 100 voters can get permission to open their polls at midnight and close them as soon as all registered voters have cast their ballots.
Voting begins in earnest at 6 a.m. (1100 GMT) in several states along the East Coast.