Early New Hampshire fillip for Haley

– Voters in Dixville Notch, a tiny village with only six registered voters, kicked off New Hampshire’s presidential primary yesterday – handing a surprise early landslide victory to Nikki Haley.

The midnight vote and count ended with no votes at all for frontrunner Donald Trump and six for Haley, his only remaining rival in the Republican Party’s nomination race.

The tiny northeastern hamlet in the middle of the forest, near the Canadian border, has traditionally voted “first in the nation” in primaries and the presidential election itself since 1960.

Electoral laws in New Hampshire allow municipalities with fewer than 100 residents to open their polling stations at midnight and to close them when all registered voters have fulfilled their civic duty. Most polling stations in New Hampshire will open between 6am and 8am.

In Dixville Notch, the proceedings unfolded in a relaxed atmosphere as an accordion player in a shiny red shirt played the national anthem to kick off the vote and somebody’s dogs walked around the polling centre.

One by one, the six registered voters collected their ballots from election officials, stepped behind a curtain into a booth to mark them and then came back out to drop them in a box.

Polls suggest Trump will trounce Haley, leaving him in an unassailable position to secure the nomination and set up a rematch of the 2020 presidential race with Joe Biden. Haley, a former South Carolina governor, is the sole challenger after Florida Governor Ron DeSantis dropped out over the weekend. –