Americans vote amid pandemic threat, social division

WASHINGTON — Election Day voting kicked off in the United States yesterday morning with first ballots cast in Dixville Notch and Millsfield, two small towns in the northeastern state of New Hampshire.

Voters are choosing their preferred candidates for US President and New Hampshire governor, as well as federal and State legislative seats in the midnight voting, a tradition that began in Dixville Notch in 1960.

In the makeshift ballot room at Dixville Notch’s Balsams Resort, Les Otten, one of the only five local registered voters, cast the first ballot.

Otten, identifying himself as “a lifelong Republican”, said that he is voting this time for Democratic presidential nominee and former US Vice

President Joe Biden, who is challenging sitting President Donald Trump.

“I don’t agree with him on a lot of issues,” Otten said of Biden in a video posted on Twitter before the voting. “But I believe it is time to find what unites us as opposed to what divides us.”

In Dixville Notch, the other four votes also went to Biden, while residents in Millsfield voted 16 to 5 in favour of Trump.

According to the RealClearPolitics polling average, Biden leads Trump by 6,7 percentage points nationally, but only by 2,8 percentage points in top battleground States, including Florida, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin and Arizona.

Trump made campaign stops in

North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin on Monday, while Biden travelled to Ohio in the day and Pennsylvania on election eve.

Election officials and experts have said that the country should be prepared not to know who won the White House yesterday night.

Besides the Trump-Biden race, all 435 seats in the US House of Representatives and 35 of the 100 seats in the US Senate were in play yesterday.

Moreover, many voters are worried by the reality of an increasingly divided nation suffering from bitter partisan fights, violent racial conflicts and worsening social injustice.

— Xinhua 