Most of the voting centers enabled for the United States presidential elections primaries in New Hampshire have already opened their doors, with all eyes on the Republican contest between Donald Trump and Nikki Haley.
Electoral law in New Hampshire states that polling stations must open before 11am (local time, 1pm Brasília), although the vast majority start operating much earlier, between 6am and 8am.
In fact, the polls are allowed to open at midnight, a tradition normally followed by three small towns in the north of the state, close to the border with Quebec, but on this occasion only one of them, Dixville, followed.
In Dixville Notch, the voting session opened at midnight and closed minutes later as the town's six registered residents voted.
Nikki Haley won all the votes in this village, a small victory over Trump, who is emerging as the big favorite in the Republican primaries.
The electoral law also indicates that voting tables can close between 7pm and 8pm (between 9pm and 10pm Brasília), when the results will begin to be announced.
The New Hampshire primaries are the first properly speaking of this electoral cycle in the United States, which began last week for the Republican Party with the Iowa caucus.
In Iowa, Trump came in first with 51% of the vote, followed by Florida Governor Ron DeSantis (21.2%), Nikki Haley (19.1%) and businessman Vivek Ramaswamy (7.7%).
Along the way, both DeSantis and Ramaswamy dropped out of the primaries and declared their support for Trump, leaving the former president and Haley alone in the race.
In the Republican primaries in New Hampshire, only 11 delegates are at stake out of the 2,429 that will be called at the Republican National Convention that will name the winning candidate in mid-July in Milwaukee.
New Hampshire election law also states that its must always be the first primary in the country in each election cycle. On this occasion, the Democrats wanted to change their primary calendar to minimize New Hampshire, where now President Joe Biden came in fifth place four years ago.
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