Polling centers in eastern U.S. states and the District of Colombia opened early Tuesday as voters queued up to cast their votes to elect a new president.

Following the symbolic midnight voting in the towns of Dixville Notch and Hart's Location in New Hampshire, the small northeastern state of Vermont, with three electoral votes, officially kicked off the day-long marathon balloting across the nation at 5:00 a.m. Eastern U.S. time (1000 GMT).

More than 10 other eastern states, including Virginia, Maryland and Pennsylvania, joined in about one hour later.

Voting in other states across the continental United States, which spans four time zones, are expected to begin between 8:00 and 11:00 a.m. EST (1300 and 1600 GMT), while Alaska and Hawaii will be the last two states to join in, with polling to begin at 1600 GMT and 1700 GMT, respectively.

In Virginia, all public schools have been closed and turned into make-shift polling stations, with voters in the 13-electoral state lining up outside polling centers in a cloudy morning.

In keeping with a tradition that began in 1960, more than a dozen eligible voters from Dixville Notch, New Hampshire, gathered at a local hotel at midnight (0500 GMT) to cast their votes for a new president.

The polls, which officially closed minutes later, showed that 15 votes out of the 21 cast had gone to the Democratic ticket of Barack Obama and Joe Biden.

Republican ticket John McCain and Sarah Palin grabbed 6 votes, while Ralph Nader and Matt Gonzalez, an independent ticket, received none.

The small village of Dixville Notch, located in the far north of New Hampshire, is well known for its longstanding middle-of-the-night vote in the U.S. presidential elections, a symbolic event which marks the casting of the first ballots and the polls' initial results.

Hart's Location, another small town in New Hampshire, also shares Dixville Notch's enviable status of being one of the first places to cast votes in the presidential elections.

There, Obama received 17 votes, compared to McCain's 10, and write-in candidate Ron Paul's two.

(Xinhua News Agency November 5, 2008)