With an anxious world watching, Americans yesterday began voting on whether to send the first female president or a volatile populist tycoon to the White House.
The kickoff marks the end to a campaign like no other — exhausting, often bitter — as Democratic candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton and Republican candidate Donald Trump presented radically different visions of how to lead the world’s greatest power.
Polls opened at 6am in nine states, mainly in the east. The name of the winner was not expected to be known before 3am GMT (11am Taipei time).
Photo: Reuters
Clinton has a slim lead in the polls, but no one was ruling out a Trump win.
Clinton and Trump campaigned into the early hours of election day, capping a grueling final day of wooing voters.
The 69-year-old former first lady, senator and secretary of state — backed by A-list musical stars and US President Barack Obama — urged the country to unite and vote for “a hopeful, inclusive, big-hearted America.”
Photo: AFP
Trump pressed his message with voters who feel left behind by globalization and social change, wrapping up with a flourish on his protectionist slogan: “America first.”
“Just imagine what our country could accomplish if we started working together as one people, under one God, saluting one American flag,” the 70-year-old told cheering supporters.
About 40 million Americans have already cast ballots in states that allow early voting, and opinion polls suggest Clinton has a slight edge.
In their kickoff midnight vote, the residents of tiny Dixville Notch in New Hampshire cast their traditional first-in-nation ballots with a total of eight votes — Clinton getting four and Trump, two.
The others went to a fringe candidate and Mitt Romney, the failed Republican hopeful in 2012.
No results or exit polls will be available before polling stations begin to close on the US East Coast from 7pm (8am Taipei time), and it may be three or more hours after that before the direction of the race becomes clear.
And even then, questions remain. Trump has repeatedly warned that a “corrupt Washington and media elite” is seeking to rig the race and he said last month that he may not concede defeat if he thinks voting is unfair.
Clinton has pushed a more optimistic vision, despite a wobble in the final weeks of her campaign when the FBI reopened an investigation into whether she had put US secrets at risk by using a private email server — only to close it again on Sunday.
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