From storm-ravaged New Jersey to a sun-kissed California, millions of Americans lined up yesterday to vote in the dramatic climax of a hard-fought race between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney.
Everyone is coming out and excited and hopefully, by the end of the night, we’ll know who is going to be our next President
Many were patient. Some were jittery. Still others – especially those enduring power outages and the mountains of debris left by superstorm Sandy last week – were understandably a bit cranky.
For many, a palpable sense of excitement hung over what they saw as a crossroads for deeply divided and economically struggling America, with citizens choosing between two men with very different visions.
“It’s very exciting, I love the turnout,” said Cal Alde of Falls Church, Virginia, outside Washington, who sported a festive star-spangled top hat and a “Keep Obama and carry on” T-shirt after casting his vote.
“But we’re biased,” added his colleague Will Farnam, wearing a pro-Obama badge while breakfasting on a bagel at Starbucks.
“There are a lot of Romney people out there... it’s going to be tight.”
“We’re excited on both sides,” said Caitrin McCarron, a Republican supporter in nearby Arlington, Virginia.
“Virginia is obviously a battleground state,” she told AFP, using the American political lingo for a hotly contested state where the result could swing the final national outcome.
“Everyone is coming out and excited and hopefully, by the end of the night, we’ll know who is going to be our next president.”
In New Jersey, reeling from superstorm Sandy, which left thousands suddenly homeless last week, voters waited in line impatiently amid rubble and rotting rubbish.
In Hoboken, across the Hudson River from New York City, one makeshift polling station was 40 minutes late in opening, drawing complaints from the 60 or so people in line.
“Please excuse the appearance of this place,” a poll worker told the crowd. “Two days ago, it was under two feet of water.” By mid-day, the waiting time at one polling station in Fairfax County outside Washington was three hours, an AFP reporter said.
Voters in the battleground state of Ohio were wrestling with unusually long ballot papers due to the fact that they were voting not only for the next US president, but also for changes to the state constitution.
“I think that if you had not done some homework, it was very confusing,” said Annie Hamilton, a Democrat in University Heights, outside Cleveland.
In Chicago, on the other hand, few voters were seen when polls opened at dawn – possibly a reflection of how many, like President Obama himself, had taken advantage of early voting opportunities.
By some estimates, more than a third of Americans voted early – something the Obama campaign actively encouraged.
In another battleground state, Florida, which decided the 2000 election for George W. Bush, long lines formed early at polling stations as weather forecasters warned of thunderstorms later in the day.
First-time voter Mary Ann Weber, 20, a University of Miami architecture student, turned up four hours early to be among the first to weigh in. She said she backed Obama, seeing him as a force for social change. But another early-riser, Cuban-American Ruben Salazar, 72, favoured Romney: “We need to change this president. I need a job for my wife, for my daughter, a better future for my grandsons, and that’s why I’ll vote for Romney.”
In southern California, a mariachi band walked the streets of Van Nuys early in the day, stirring up the Latino vote for Obama with popular tunes like La Bikina. Behind them was a banner that read: “For our American Dream”.
In Oakland, across the bay from unabashedly liberal San Francisco, Tommy Jones, 56, waited 10 minutes to vote at a Baptist church, only to find the line twice as long when he exited.
“As a black man it is as important to vote this time as any time,” he said, as a woman stepped out, pumped her fist and chanted: “Obama.”
Online, many Americans used Twitter to post photos of themselves voting, and FourSquare to pinpoint where they did so.
Google re-doodled its homepage logo to help users locate their nearest polling station. “#iVoted for #TeamObama. Had to put an extra check for good measure!,” New York tweeter @Stwo said, attaching a photo of his ballot paper that bore candidate names in English and Chinese.
Americans were still voting at the time of going to print.