Tiny town casts first US votes -- Clinton wins
Dixvile Notch, United States, Nov 8, 2016 (AFP) - A tiny New Hampshire town cast the first votes in the US presidential election at the stroke of midnight Tuesday, and the results are in: it chose Hillary Clinton.
Dixville Notch, a hamlet about 20 miles (32 kilometers) south of the Canadian border, has maintained the tradition of first-in-the-nation voting since 1960.
But the outcome in this mountainous Republican stronghold near Quebec is seen as more of a curiosity than a national bellwether.
A crowd of media and others dwarfed the exactly seven residents -- five men and two women -- of Dixville Notch who lined up to vote as Democrat Clinton and Republican rival Donald Trump battled in a tight race.
"Trump, he talks about jobs, that he's going to give jobs. The others do nothing," said Andre Grondin, speaking in French. The 40-something owner of a public works company has proudly raised a huge blue Trump banner above dozens of his backhoes.
Just seconds after midnight, the ballots had been placed in a wooden box in the middle of the "ballot room" at the hotel of The Balsams ski resort.
Dixville Notch's eight votes, including one absentee ballot, were swiftly counted and the tally announced: Clinton won four votes, in a relative landslide to the Republican billionaires's two.
Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson won one vote. Mitt Romney, the Republican presidential nominee who lost to incumbent President Barack Obama in 2012, garnered a write-in vote.
That year Obama and Romney each won five votes. In 2008 Obama was the first Democrat to win Dixville Notch, breaking Republican dominance.
- Small state counts -