Small town votes in US to keep tradition alive

Washington, Nov 8 (IANS) Keeping alive a tradition begun in 1960, six people in a small town voted just after midnight on Tuesday — before the US Presidential elections start later in the day.

All the six voters first gathered at a polling station in Dixville Notch town in New Hampshire state to draw lottery to decide who will be the first voter, reports Xinhua news agency.

Clay Smith, 30, the first to vote, was calm after voting: "This is just another night."

The whole voting process lasted about 10 seconds.

The first-in-the-nation voting took place in the town despite major renovation underway at the now-crumbling Balsams Grand Resort Hotel, the traditional balloting place, which was closed in 2011.

Presidential voting elsewhere in the US will mostly begin on Tuesday morning.

A makeshift polling station was set up this year in the hotel builder’s lakeside house, which was erected more than 100 years ago, just a few hundred meters away.

Tom Tillotson, whose father Neil Tillotson started the midnight voting tradition in the town in 1960, who moderated the voting on Tuesday.

He told Xinhua that the ballot booths — just small cubicles — were not enough for all the six voters and two of them had to mark their ballots at a writing desk nearby.

"We have to carry on the tradition," said Tillotson.