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The primary votes within the New Hampshire major have been forged within the township of Dixville Notch.
All six of them.
Nikki Haley took 100% of the vote, with 100% turnout. The polls — or ballot, on this case — opened simply after the clock struck midnight, as they’ve right here for 64 years, to nice fanfare. And 10 minutes later, the voting was finished.
The occasion is as a lot a press spectacle as it’s a severe train in democracy: There have been greater than 10 journalists for each voter, together with representatives from main TV networks, newspapers, wire providers and international press from over a dozen international locations.
Ms. Haley’s unanimous victory got here as one thing of a shock to a first-time Dixville Notch voter, Valerie Maxwell, 54, who works for the resort the place the voting was held.
“I wasn’t positive she would do it however I’m so excited,” Ms. Maxwell stated. “We didn’t inform one another who we had been voting for, so I wasn’t positive. However I’m actually excited she did it.”
The township, simply 20 miles from the Canadian border, was as soon as heralded as a near-magic bellwether: The winner of its Republican major went on to win the get together’s nomination in each election cycle from 1968 to 2012. No matter predictive powers it might have possessed had been uncovered by Donald J. Trump, who misplaced in Dixville Notch, 2 votes to three, in 2016 to former Gov. John R. Kasich of Ohio.
The lack of religion in its prognostic skills maybe precipitated the decline of its political draw. As soon as a vacation spot for presidential hopefuls, Dixville Notch didn’t host any of this 12 months’s major candidates. That didn’t diminish the symbolic weight of the midnight vote for Tom Tillotson, 78, the township’s moderator, an elected place that oversees city conferences.
“My one vote isn’t going to swing something, however possibly how we vote would possibly give folks some options,” stated Mr. Tillotson, who’s sad with the prospect of one other matchup between President Biden and former President Donald J. Trump. He hopes different voters comply with the township’s lead in supporting one other candidate.
Les Otten, the true property developer who owns the Balsams, the resort that hosts the vote, stated he was sick of the destructive and pessimistic politics of the present presidential race. In spite of everything, the USA financial system is among the many very strongest on this planet, he stated.
“How is that one thing to be petrified of? It isn’t,” Mr. Otten stated. “That’s what our job as voters really is: to show off all the politics, to show off all the second-guessers, all of the pundits.”
Dixville Notch, inhabitants six, is residence to not a single Democrat — its voter rolls listing 4 Republicans and two independents. However Mr. Tillotson insisted that the vote right here is much less concerning the get together and extra concerning the course of.
“The true message right here is ‘get off your butts, get on the market and vote.’ Everyone. Republicans and Democrats,” stated Mr. Tillotson, a former Republican who left the get together in 2020 and is now unaffiliated.
Dixville Notch was as soon as not so particular in its method to elections. Different cities that used to vote at midnight, like Millsfield and Hart’s Location, opted to carry their elections at extra regular hours this 12 months, leaving Dixville Notch’s voters alone — save the journalists, after all.
Within the moments earlier than midnight, Mr. Tillotson entertained the assembled media with a yarn about his father, Neil Tillotson, who started the midnight voting custom. Because the youthful Mr. Tillotson tells it, his father used to set his watch a couple of minutes quick, simply to beat out the opposite early-voting cities.
“Nicely, I don’t know if that’s true or not,” he stated, considerably spoiling the story.
One other voter, Annmarie Pintal Turcotte, 54, an actual property developer and enterprise accomplice of Mr. Otten’s who made up greater than 16 % of the voters right here, forged her first vote in Dixville Notch and reported that the method was totally pleasant.
“It’s thrilling, I believe that is a lot extra enjoyable,” she stated. “I wish to vote on a regular basis now.”
Not all of Dixville Notch’s voters had been enthused concerning the consideration and the inflow of press. Deborah Tillotson, Mr. Tillotson’s spouse, politely declined to reply questions concerning the night time’s hoopla — “I’m not thinking about having a dialog about this,” she stated — and he or she remained in her seat subsequent to the poll field because the media scrum engulfed her 5 neighbors.
The Balsams Resort, the place the half-dozen voters normally congregate within the aptly named Poll Room, is closed for renovation, so the few voters, many journalists and two canines (Maxine and Lucy) as an alternative packed into the Tillotson Room in one of many resort’s outbuildings that was as soon as residence to the elder Mr. Tillotson.
Till his loss of life at 102 in 2001, Neil Tillotson took it upon himself to forged the primary poll, claiming the weird distinction of the nation’s first voter. Into his footwear stepped Mr. Otten, a ski-resort magnate who as soon as owned a part of the Boston Crimson Sox and lots of of New England’s storied resorts. Mr. Otten purchased the Balsams in 2016 and has been attempting to show the resort, which has slid into disrepair and right this moment sits vacant, right into a year-round vacation spot with an unlimited ski space to rival the biggest in New England.
The spectacle of the midnight vote has captured the creativeness of political fans for many years, and it garnered much more fame after the custom was featured in an episode of “The West Wing.”
However Dixville Notch’s status didn’t precede itself for Scott Maxwell, 54, who participated within the midnight vote for the primary time on Tuesday.
“They forgot to inform me that half,” stated Mr. Maxwell, a carpenter and husband to Valerie Maxwell. “I don’t keep in mind once I discovered, most likely after I’d been up right here two or three months.”
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