The traditional first tally of the 2024 US presidential elections in the tiny village of Dixville Notch, in New Hampshire’s northern tip, ended in a deadlock: three votes to Kamala Harris and three for Donald Trump.
It took approximately 12 minutes to count and certify the votes of the six residents of this tiny community near the Canadian border, which has been casting its ballots at midnight on election day for decades.
The result marks a significant shift from four years ago, when all five votes went to Joe Biden – even though this year four of the registered voters are Republicans and the other two are independents, according to the Washington Post.
Dixville Notch, in the White Mountains, started its early voting in 1960. The tradition originated in the nearby town of Hart’s Location, to accommodate rail workers who had to be at work before normal voting hours.
Although the town’s result doesn’t always predict the eventual winner – in 2016, Hillary Clinton beat Trump here by four votes to two – this time the result chimes with what most polls say is an extremely close election and evenly divided electorate.
“This feels about normal,” Tom Tillotson, 79, told the New York Times. His father, Neil Tillotson, started the tradition of early-morning voting at his Balsams Grand Resort hotel in 1960, gaining free publicity by allowing journalists to use the hotel’s phones to report the vote count, well before exit polls from other areas were available.
All six residents who voted in this year’s election live in the former hotel. One of them, Scott Maxwell, expressed surprise at the unexpected split result. “I didn’t see that coming,” he told the New York Times. He also admitted that even he was taken aback by his vote for Trump.
Les Otten, another voter, told CNN the early release of the results are “a civics lesson for the country”, adding: “If we can help people get out and understand that voting is an important part of their right as an American citizen, that’s perhaps the key to what we’re doing.”
