WASHINGTON: Americans took to Twitter in droves yesterday to post photos of themselves casting ballots in the long-awaited presidential election, sporting “I voted” stickers and urging others to do the same.
Google also got in on the act, enabling users to click on the search engine’s Doodle — made out of ballot papers with the second ‘g’ falling into a voting box sporting the US flag — to find their nearest polling station.
“Just cast my vote & my grandpa would be so proud!”, @She_Weezy2012 tweeted, posting a picture of an “I Voted” sticker on her grey jumper, complete with the #ivoted hashtag, which was being used by hundreds of Twitter users.
“#iVoted for #TeamObama. Had to put an extra check for good measure!,” @Stwo from New York City said, adding a photo of his ballot paper which had the names of candidates in English and Chinese.
Many complained of long waits at polling stations. “Whew 1 hour & 45 mins later,” @trentfaris tweeted, but still proudly posted a photo of his “I voted” sticker.
Woman votes en route to delivery room
CHICAGO: Nothing was going to stop first-time voter Galicia Malone from casting her ballot in yesterday’s elections — not even the imminent birth of her first child.
The 21-year-old from Dolton, Illinois, a suburb of President Barack Obama’s adopted hometown Chicago, had been in labour since the middle of the night, with contractions five minutes apart.
But she insisted en route to hospital on stopping at her local polling station — the aptly named New Life Celebration Church — to cast her ballot, Cook County clerk David Orr said in a news release..
“I never voted before so this made a major difference in my life,” Malone told Chicago’s WBBM all-news radio station. “And I wanted this to be a stepping-stone for my daughter.”
Power trio hit up Ohio on election day
CLEVELAND: Incumbent Barack Obama was laying low in hometown Chicago on election day yesterday, but the three other protagonists in the presidential election have all converged on the same city: Cleveland, Ohio.
It is a measure of the intensity of the battle for the crucial Midwestern state that the campaign planes of Republican nominee Mitt Romney, his running mate Paul Ryan, and Obama’s Vice President Joe Biden all wound up within a few hundred of one another on the tarmac here.
Romney touched down at 11:15 am local time. Twenty-two minutes later, with Romney still aboard his plane, Air Force Two arrived bearing Biden, who was heading to a Cleveland restaurant with some relatives.
Agencies
