1st voter in N.H. town is McGill engineering student

One of thefirst voters in the United States to cast a ballot Tuesday in the presidential election was a McGill University engineering student in Montreal who got a lift from his mom to make it to the New Hampshire poll on time.

Tanner Tillotson, 20, was the first registered voter to cast a ballot in Dixville Notch, N.H.,on Tuesday, where polls traditionally open at the stroke of midnight on election day.

It was the first time Tillotson voted in a presidential election, and he says he supported Democrat candidate Barack Obama because "he's more of what the United States needs as a leader right now."

For 40 years, Tillotson's grandfather Neil was the first to vote in Dixville Notch, until his death in 2001. As the town's moderator, he made it a tradition to open polls at midnight, and close them as soon as the last registered voter cast their ballot.

This year, that process took three minutes, given there are only 21 registered voters in the community.

Voter turnout was 100 per cent andthe results were announced immediately: John McCain, 6 votes, Barack Obama, 15 votes.

It is the first time Dixville Notch has voted Democrat since the Humphrey-Nixon race in 1968.