High turnout as US voters head to polls
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E-mail China.org.cn, November 7, 2012
Voters across the United States are marching towards poll stations on Tuesday to choose their next president between incumbent Barack Obama and Republican challenger Mitt Romney.
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Republican presidential candidate, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney (L) and his wife Ann Romney emerge from the Beech Street Center after casting their ballots at on November 6, 2012 in Belmont, Massachusetts. The race for the presidency remains tight as Americans are heading to the polls to cast their ballots. |
The Election Day voting started in the tiny town of Dixville Notch in New Hampshire immediately after midnight Eastern Standard Time (EST) (0500 GMT).
After 43 seconds of voting, Obama and Romney each had 5 votes in the town, where the first voter, Tanner Tillotson, was fixed by lottery drawing shortly before the voting.
"It's definitely a great honor. This is actually the second time I've been selected. I also was selected back in 2008, when I also had the honor to be the first person to vote for President Obama," said Tillotson.
First daytime polls opened at 5 a.m. EST (1000 GMT) in northeastern Vermont, a safe Democratic state. Only several locations in the state opened that early, while most opened at 6 a.m. (1100 GMT).
At 6 a.m., polls were opened in the battleground state of Virginia, as well as a host of states across the East Coast, including New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Maine and the rest of New Hampshire and Vermont, and meanwhile in Indiana and Kentucky.
"I vote for President Obama for President. I think his balanced approach to fixing some of our fiscal problems as well as his leadership on foreign policy and his commitment to making sure everybody pays their fair share and play by the same rules, I think it's worthy of my vote," said David Bevevino, who voted in Virginia.
Another Virginia voter, Joe Hunsader, said: "I voted for Romney ... The deficit under the last four years has been way too much. We've got to do something about the deficit and reduce federal spending."
About half an hour later, election sites were open in the important battleground of Ohio, almost bringing to an end the intense competition for the state's 18 electoral votes.
Romney and his wife Ann cast their ballots Tuesday before he headed to Ohio and Pennsylvania for last-minute efforts there.
The Romneys voted near their home at the Beech Street Center in the town of Belmont, Massachusetts, the same location where they voted in the Republican primary in March.
U.S. Vice President Joe Biden were among the first voters at a polling place in his home state of Delaware.
Obama cast his own vote 12 days before Election Day to encourage early voting that tends to favor Democrats.
Long queues were reported at the polling stations across the country on the Election Day. Turnout was heavy in several areas in New York and New Jersey, where superstorm Sandy wreaked havoc and many voters expressed relief and even elation at being able to vote.
New Jersey voters queued up amid rubble and rotting rubbish left by Sandy as election officials managed to open most makeshift polling stations on time, amid complaints from voters about the poor voting facilities or circumstances there.
In Hoboken, which lies just across the Hudson River from New York City and was struck by Sandy last week, one of the makeshift polling stations opened 40 minutes late with about 60 people waiting in the sharp morning chill.
The polls were slated to last the whole day across the United States, with the first results expected to come in after polls close at 7 p.m. (0000 GMT Wednesday) in Virginia, which has 13 electoral votes and is especially important to Romney. Other states' polls will close later.
However, a projection of the election results will not be expected before later in the night, as most battleground states may produce too-close-to-call results.
The last polls are to close 1 a.m. Wednesday (0600 GMT) in Alaska, a safe Republican state.
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