US elections: unanimous result, as the first votes are counted in Dixville Notch

The first ballots on Election Day have been counted after the clock struck after midnight on the East Coast of the United States.

In the small township of Dixville Notch, New Hampshire, on the border between the United States and Canada, Les Otten was the first to cast his vote.

The tradition of voting, a national spectacle, began in 1960 in the wood-paneled voting room at The Balsams Resort.

This year, the five midnight votes went to Joe Biden and Kamala Harris and none to Donald Trump and Mike Pence.

“I am a lifelong Republican, voting for Joe Biden for president,” Otten said in a video posted on Twitter.

“I do not agree with him on many issues, but I think it is time to find what unites us, not what divides us.”

“It is time to rebuild the heart of what makes us a great country. That begins with choosing leaders of character who are truthful and put the well-being of the country above all else, and who will show respect for all people regardless. your gender, race, religion or political beliefs. “

Otten, a developer, was unsuccessful in his bid to become Republican governor of Maine in 2010 when his career ended in the primaries.

He moved to Dixville Notch after his voting tradition was compromised by the departure of a resident.

“The difficulty with such a small population is that it takes at least five people to fill the necessary positions to hold an election,” Nicholas Chong Yen of the New Hampshire Attorney General’s Office told Fox News in February.

“They were missing one of those critical election officials needed to hold an election, specifically this upcoming presidential primary.”

The Election Day process takes less than five minutes from when the polls close until the votes are counted and then announced.

“I think it’s democracy as the founding fathers envisioned it and that’s exciting,” another of the five voters, Joseph Casey, told Fox News.

The system has been compared to the Pennsylvania groundhog, “not necessarily predictive.”

In 2016, Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton won four of eight residents’ votes, while Donald Trump claimed two, libertarian Gary Johnson got one vote, and there was a written vote for Mitt Romney.

The Boston Globe reported that the city peaked in 1988 with 38 votes.

Dixville Notch is generally between three small towns to vote at midnight and while Millsfield, with 22 registered voters, also went to the polls as planned, the 48 voters at Hart’s Location this year will vote between 11 a.m. and 7 p.m. pm on Tuesday due to Covid -19 concerns.

However, Millsfield’s votes have since leaked and they tell a different story with 16 for Trump and five for Biden.

Forbes political reporter Andrew Solender noted that this was still a change for Democrats compared to the votes for each city in 2016.

New Hampshire Secretary of State Bill Gardner predicted Monday that at least 800,000 votes would be cast, surpassing the record set in 2016 of 755,850.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if we had tens of thousands more than that, but I’m being conservative,” he said, according to the Associated Press.