By Fred Barbash for the Washington Post.
The first actual results of the 2016 presidential election are in: Voters in Dixville Notch, N.H., cast 4 votes for Democrat Hillary Clinton, 2 for Republican Donald Trump and one for the Libertarian Party’s Gary Johnson.
Mitt Romney, the GOP’s 2012 presidential nominee, got a single write-in vote in the country’s “First in the Nation” balloting.
Two other New Hampshire towns claiming “First” status, Hart’s Location and Millsfield, cast and counted their ballots after midnight Tuesday as well. The grand total for all three gave Trump a 32-to-25 edge over Clinton.
Clinton got 4 votes in Dixville to Trump’s 2; 17 in Hart’s Location to Trump’s 14; and 4 in Millsfield to Trump’s 16.
The latest polling from New Hampshire would suggest a wholly different outcome. An Emerson College poll conducted between Nov. 4-5 gives Clinton a 1 percentage point advantage. A WMUR/University of New Hampshire survey taken Nov. 3-6 gives her an 11 point edge.
But no one has ever suggested that these tiny hamlets are representative of the state or predictive, rather than entertaining, benign novelties designed to generate a little publicity, in the case of Dixville, for the Balsams Grand Resort Hotel, where the balloting is conducted.
Following a tradition dating back to 1960, the tiny town of Dixville just 20 miles south of the Canadian border began voting at midnight and within a few minutes counted the ballots and posted the results.
The town voted unanimously for Republican Richard M. Nixon in 1960, when Democrat John F. Kennedy was elected president. In 2012, voters split evenly with 5 for President Obama and 5 for Romney.
In 2008, Obama was the first Democrat to win Dixville Notch in a presidential election since 1968.
Then again, Dixville Notch has never claimed any distinction other than being first, a status now challenged by wannabe towns in New Hampshire.
Also reporting results shortly after midnight and claiming “First in the Nation” status was the town of Hart’s Location, N.H.
Hart’s Location, a veritable metropolis compared with Dixville, reported results as follows:
Bernie Sanders got 2 write-in votes and John Kasich another.
Finally, in Millsfield, N.H., Trump beat Clinton by a margin of 4 to 1 — with the Republican getting 16 votes to the Democrat’s 4 votes, the Associated Press reported.
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