Historic poll locale will miss ’12 voting
DIXVILLE NOTCH, N.H. — Voters in tiny Dixville, N.H., have cast some of the nation’s first ballots for president at the historic Balsams Grand Resort Hotel for more than 50 years. But not this year. The hotel will be closed for Tuesday’s election. The village’s 10 registered voters will continue the midnight tradition at a local ski lodge.
The Victorian- and Alpine-style resort is known for its wood-paneled Ballot Room, where residents have cast their votes for president at the stroke of midnight on New Hampshire’s primary day and on the nation’s Election Day since 1960. The room is filled with political articles and cartoons from presidential campaigns and a special glassencased ballot box.
Dixville shares midnight voting with Hart’s Location, which began the early-bird tradition in 1948. Most residents of the White Mountain village then were railroad workers who had to be on the job during normal polling hours. By 1964 the townspeople had grown weary of the media attention and the late hours and did away with the practice. They revived it in 1996.
Former Balsams owner Neil Tillotson, eager to steal the spotlight from Hart’s Location, arranged for the early elections by having Dixville incorporated in 1960 solely for voting.
The nearly 150-year-old resort was officially closed in September 2011. Two local businessmen who bought it for $2.3 million hope to re-open it next year.
The hotel this year was re-opened just for one night — the state’s first-in-the-nation presidential primary on Jan. 10.