Early news on Election Day

Barack Obama takes Dixville Notch, the first Democratic to win in the small early-voting New Hampshire town in 40 years.

The globe voices strong support for an Obama presidency. From the Times of London:

"Obamamania is at fever pitch across Europe, where his ratings regularly exceed 80 per cent... Urbane, intellectual and idealistic, Mr Obama “is the kind of American we love”, said Jack Lang, a Socialist and the long-serving Culture Minister of the late President Mitterrand. 'His is the America of jazz and Fitzgerald and Falconer and Kerouac and Kennedy'... The world’s hopes for the 2004 elections – 53 per cent for John Kerry, 3 per cent for George Bush – had precious little bearing on the outcome."

The world hopes for a "less arrogant America," reports the Associated Press.

Record numbers of voters are expected to hit the polls.

The AP reports:

"Lawsuits alleging voter suppression already had surfaced in Virginia, a hotly contested state. A judge refused late Monday to extend poll hours or add voting machines to black precincts in some areas. The NAACP, in a federal lawsuit, demanded those changes, saying minority neighborhoods would experience overwhelming turnout and there weren't enough electronic machines.

U.S. District Judge Richard Williams denied the motion for a preliminary injunction, but ordered election officials to publicize that people in line by 7 p.m., the polls' closing time, would be allowed to cast ballots.

Republican John McCain's campaign sued the Virginia electoral board hours before polls opened, trying to force the state to count late-arriving military ballots from overseas."