Dixville Notch has spoken
Hillary Clinton seems to have picked up almost all Bernie Sanders’ supporters during the course of the election season, according to the first results from the US election.
The tiny community of Dixville Notch, nestled in the White Mountains at the northern tip of New Hampshire, has a tradition of voting at midnight at the start of each election day.
The handful of registered voters all gather before midnight in the village polling place – the ballroom of the Balsams Resort building – and vote at exactly 12:00am.
Since the polling officers can conclude that all the local registered voters have voted, the polling place is formally closed and the results immediately counted and declared.
2016 US presidential election results are in from Dixville Notch and Hart’s Location
Dixville Notch began its tradition of midnight voting in 1960. The village regularly favours Republican presidential candidates, with election loser Hubert Humphrey (1968) and winner Barack Obama (2008 and a tie in 2012) the only Democratic candidates to win local support.
In 2016 Dixville Notch had just 9 registered voters, well down from nearly 30 voters in the 1990s.
At the party primary elections earlier this year, four people voted for Democratic candidate Senator Bernie Sanders, three voted for Republican Governor of Ohio John Kasich, and two locals went for Donald Trump. Hillary Clinton attracted no support.
Today only 8 people have voted in Dixville Notch. All four Sanders primary supporters appear to have swung behind Clinton. Donald Trump has kept his two original voters, but convinced none of the three other Republican voters to swing to him.
Dixville Notch residents are well positioned to flee across into Canada – just over 10 miles away – should the election results prove disastrous for the nation.
Another New Hampshire Community to the south, Hart’s Location, has followed the same election practice since 1996, and races Dixville Notch to announce its results fastest.
Hart’s Location is normally kinder to Democratic candidates. In the primary elections in February Hart’s Location’s 35 registered voters backed Democrats Sanders (12 votes) and Clinton (7) over Republicans Kasich (5) and Trump (4), with 7 other votes for minor candidates.
One of the Sanders’ supporters from February seems to have today lodged a write-in protest, but Clinton appears to have picked up almost all the others. Unlike in Dixville Notch, in Hart’s Location Donald Trump seems to have consolidated all the 14 original Republican supporters behind him.
Three final Hart’s Location voters – including one who seems to be newly registered – have voted for Libertarian Gary Johnson or written other names.
More election results to follow.
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