Category: US 2016

Rivals Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton and Republican nominee Donald Trump will vote barely more than a mile apart on Tuesday in New York after sparring with each other at campaign rallies.

“Trump will vote at Hilton Hotel in New York, not at Trump Tower and interestingly, Clinton will vote just about a mile apart at the Javits Convention Centre.

“This is the first time it is happening in the recent history that two leading presidential candidates will vote in the city.

“This is one of the things that make this election historic and different,” Jeff Ryer, a Republican Chieftain in the state of Virginia told a U.S. correspondent of the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN).

A member of Senate of the state of Virginia, Frank Wagner, said the election night would be an uneasy one for both candidates.

“What you will see is that they will vote and go to war room to monitor what happens in the states as the votes come in,” he said.

Reports say spending election night not only in the same city, but barely more than a mile apart in midtown Manhattan, is creating unprecedented security headaches for New York City.

“For the first time in modern memory, both major party candidates will monitor the results here in New York and will have election night parties in midtown Manhattan,’’ New York Police Commissioner James O’Neill said on Monday.

The last time two presidential candidates were from New York was in 1944 when Franklin Roosevelt won his fourth term, defeating New York Governor, Thomas Dewey, but celebrations were subdued by World War II.

Clinton and her husband, former President Bill Clinton, live in the suburb of Chappaqua, where they moved in 1999 so that she could run for U.S. Senate. 

Trump, on the other hand, lives in a penthouse condominium atop the Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue.

The election night jitters come in the midst of a heightened terrorism alert as a bomb that exploded in the Chelsea neighbourhood in mid-September injured 29 people.

Federal officials have said they have received intelligence warnings of a terrorist threat from the Al Qaeda militant group and Islamic State, which has also called on its supporters to attack election targets.

Police officials said they would have more than 5,000 police officers out on election night, uniformed and plain-clothed, as well as bomb-sniffing dogs, and what they called “long gun trained” special forces.

Up until now, the largest deployment of security in New York City was during Pope Francis’ visit last year, which coincided with the UN General Assembly, attended by President Barak Obama and 170 other world leaders.

Aside from terrorism, the polarising presidential election has elicited strong, occasionally destructive passions.

High-rise buildings in Manhattan bearing the Trump name have been pelted with eggs repeatedly.

In Staten Island, the borough where Trump is most popular, a gigantic sign erected on the lawn of a supporter was set on fire in August.

Besides the competing election night parties, the campaign has generated particular passion and concern.

Huge crowds are expected at Times square, where people often watch election results in much the same way that they gather on New Year’s Eve.

Another key location is the 58-story Trump Tower, which has become the epicentre for protests for and against Trump’s candidacy.

On Sunday, competing crowds tried to drown each other out under the gold marquee of the building as police struggled to keep the sidewalks clear.

Clinton appears to be planning the larger, more lavish party at the sprawling Javits Centre, which occupies a city block along the Hudson River and can accommodate as many as 85,000 people.

Her campaign also received a permit for a fireworks display over the river, but the plan has been called off, according to a police official, who said he did not know the reason.

According to the New York Post, if Clinton wins there will be an after-party at the Peninsula Hotel, just one block away from Trump Tower.

Heavy security was already in place over the weekend at the Javits Center and television vans with satellite dishes were parked out front.

On Sunday, the scene was quieter in front of the Hilton, where the only evidence of an impending election event was a sign that read “No Parking on Tuesday”.

Tuesday’s historic U.S. elections will open at 6 a.m. (noon Nigerian time) and end at 7 p.m. (1 a.m. Wednesday Nigerian time), the Department of Elections, State of Virginia, said.

Hillary Clinton tells supporters at her final campaign event that “the kind of country we want” will be on Tuesday’s presidential ballot,’’ she said at a midnight rally in Raleigh, North Carolina.

“It is not just my name or Donald Trump’s name on the ballot; it is the kind of country we want. Let us go out and prove that love trumps hate,’’ Clinton said, repeating a line she has used often on the campaign trail.

Clinton was joined in the key swing state by her husband, former president Bill Clinton, and daughter Chelsea.

Pop star Lady Gaga performed ahead of Clinton’s address, and exclaimed at the crowd: “Hillary Clinton is made of steel!’’ and “Hillary Clinton is unstoppable!’’

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Tuesday’s historic U.S. elections will open at 6 a.m. (noon Nigerian time) and end at 7 p.m. (1 a.m. Wednesday Nigerian time), the Department of Elections, State of Virginia, said.

The Commissioner, Mr Edgardo Cortes, told the correspondent of the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in the U.S. that the elections include the presidential and congressional, while other states also have local elections.

No fewer than 20 states are also expected to elect governorship candidates in Tuesday’s polls seen by many as the most unusual and most unpredictable in recent history.

NAN, however, reports that voters in a New Hampshire hamlet, Dixville Notch kicked off voting and residents of the hamlet cast their votes at midnight.

Out of the six votes cast, Hillary Clinton beat Donald Trump four votes to two, while Libertarian Gary Johnson received one vote, and Mitt Romney received a surprise write-in ballot, according to USA Today.

A New Hampshire law allows communities with fewer than 100 voters to open their polls at midnight and close them as soon as all registered voters have cast their ballots.

Cortes said the results of all the elections would be online for anyone to see and use before the end of Tuesday.

“We open the results online and anyone can see and use it. There is no press conference or any official to announce the result and declare any candidate the winner.

“We update our website once every 10 minutes and you can go online to get it,” he said.

The elections commissioner explained that elections results were expected to be posted online as soon as they were transmitted from the election districts.

Cortes, however, said that all results that would be posted online would remain provisional until the electoral board in each of the 50 states meets on Nov. 19, 2016 to certify the results.

According to him, the provisional results are usually not significantly different from the certified results.

In the unlikely event that a candidate alleged rigging, the commissioner said that “a candidate does not head to the tribunal but petitions the State Congress’’.

Cortes, however, said that allegations of rigging had never happened in the history that he remembered.

“Case of rigging has never happened and it does not come up in our electoral system because it has been tested and it is a professional-run process and we don’t run into those issues.”

He said electoral officials, who are members of Republican and Democratic parties appointed by judges at the local level and by the state governor at the state level, cross-checked the figures.

According to him, cross-checking the ballots and the tally with the figures usually take one week to ensure that any mistake is corrected.

Cortes also ruled out fears of hacking of the system, saying that it is not internet-transmitted and could not be hacked into.

NAN reports that about 200 million Americans are expected to vote in a heated election that has two leading presidential candidates, Democratic Hillary Clinton and Republican Donald Trump.

The U.S. president is elected by Electoral College made up of 538 electors as against popular vote and to be elected president, a candidate must win 50 per cent plus one (51 per cent) electoral vote.

Each of the 50 states, as well as the District of Columbia, has a certain amount of Electoral College votes to award a candidate, based on the number of members of Congress it has.

Democrat Hillary Clinton and Republican Donald Trump campaigned into the early hours of Tuesday in a last pitch to U.S. voters as the final minutes of this presidential campaign tick away.

The focus of the final rallies was on the swing states such as North Carolina and Pennsylvania which hold the keys to the presidency.

A year and a half after announcing her candidacy for president, Clinton is favoured by pollsters to win the White House on Tuesday.

“It is not just my name or Donald Trump’s name on the ballot, it’s the kind of country we want,’’ she said at the midnight rally in Raleigh, North Carolina, where she was joined by her family and pop star Lady Gaga.

Speaking at his last campaign rally in Grand Rapids, Michigan, a state where Trump hoped to convince white working class voters, he told the supporters: “Today is our independence day.’’

“We are finally going to close the history books on the Clintons, their lives, their schemes, their corruptions,’’ he said.

Earlier Clinton was in Philadelphia, the largest city in the state of Pennsylvania, where her party convened in July to nominate her.

At an outdoor rally alongside President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama, she urged people to turn out Tuesday and vote for her.

“Let us show tomorrow there will be no question about the outcome of this election,’’ she said.

Clinton pledged to be a president for all Americans, not just those who support her and spoke of the need to “bridge the divide” after the election.

The last day of campaigning before the election wrapped up a political roller coaster that featured months of hostility.

It, however, include accusations against Trump over his treatment of women and against Clinton over her use of a private email server while secretary of state.

Trump declared at an appearance in Florida that he would win a slew of swing states as well as long-time Democratic strongholds, like Michigan and Minnesota.

“It is time to reject the media and liberal elite that has bled our country dry. It is finally time for us to fight for America,’’ Trump said.

Both candidates also made direct appeals to voters in unusually long two-minute television ads scheduled to run during prime time evening television programming.

Speaking directly to the camera, Clinton vowed to work her heart out as president and to make things better for you and your family.

“Tonight I am asking for your vote, and tomorrow let’s make history together,’’ Clinton said, who would be the U.S. first woman president if she defeats Trump on Tuesday.

Trump, in his ad, pledges to take back the country for them, asserting that the government is a failed and corrupt political establishment.

He said he wanted to replace the establishment with a new government controlled by the American people.

Obama also criss-crossed the country for Clinton, including shoring up support in Michigan, a traditional Democratic stronghold that Trump hoped to nab.

The president saw the election in part as a vote on his legacy, declaring all that progress goes down the drain if they do not win tomorrow and calling Trump “uniquely unqualified” to be president.

The race has tightened in recent days, but Clinton is still considered the favourite, with more paths to the 270 out of 538 Electoral College votes needed to win.

She held a slim 2-percentage-point lead in an average of national opinion surveys.

Meanwhile the race is also narrow in the battleground states, but she would need to win fewer of those states than Trump to triumph.

The ultimate winner would be determined based on so-called Electoral College votes awarded to the winner of each state, rather than to the most popular candidate nationwide.