Voters in Dixville Notch, a village of 12 residents in the US state of New Hampshire, kicked off election day at the stroke of midnight on Tuesday by voting unanimously for Democratic nominee Joe Biden.
The vote and count only took a few minutes, with five votes for Biden and none for President Donald Trump, who is seeking a second term.
The tiny northeastern town in the middle of the forest, near the Canadian border, has traditionally voted “first in the nation” since 1960.
"Normally, there would be a big food spread and a lot of media crammed into a small space to watch the voting,” Tom Tillotson, town moderator in Dixville Notch, said last week. "But that’s no longer possible because of the coronavirus pandemic. It’s also hard to observe the 60th anniversary of the tradition, which started in November 1960.”
“Sixty years — and unfortunately, we can’t celebrate it,” he said.
In Millsfield, 20 kilometres to the south, Trump won 16 votes to Biden’s five. A third village in the area, which typically follows the same tradition, cancelled overnight voting due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Hart’s Location suspended the tradition this election because of coronavirus concerns. It decided to hold voting from 11am to 7pm. The White Mountains town started the early voting in 1948 to accommodate railroad workers who had to be at work before normal voting hours. It eventually stopped in 1964 and brought it back in 1996.
Electoral laws in New Hampshire allow municipalities with fewer than 100 residents to open their polling stations at midnight and to close them when all registered voters have fulfilled their civic duty.
The communities also voted just after midnight for New Hampshire’s first-in-the-nation presidential primary, which was on Feb 11. That almost didn’t happen this year in Dixville Notch, when one person moved away, leaving the remaining four residents one short of the minimum needed to handle various election responsibilities. That was fixed when a developer working on renovations of the now-closed Balsams resort, where the voting tradition began, moved in.
Most polling stations on the East Coast will open at 6:00am or 7:00am (1100 or 1200 GMT) on Tuesday.
But with a huge expansion in mail-in voting to safeguard against the Covid-19 pandemic, a record of nearly 100 million people have already cast ballots.
While many early votes are believed to have been cast by Democrats — encouraged by Biden to take advantage of the opportunity — Trump’s campaign is hoping for a massive wave of Republican supporters voting in person on Tuesday.
