Photographers, not just candidates, battle for midnight vote

FILE - In this Feb. 28, 1984, file photo, Neil Tillotson gets ready to cast the first ballot in the New Hampshire presidential primary in Dixville, N.H. In Dixville, one of three tiny northern towns where voters will cast ballots just after midnight Feb. 9, no one quite knows how the early voting tradition started. But most agree it had something to do with rival photographers. (AP Photo/Jim Cole, File) FILE - In this Feb. 28, 1984, file photo, Neil Tillotson gets ready to cast the first ballot in the New Hampshire presidential primary in Dixville, N.H. In Dixville, one of three tiny northern towns where voters will cast ballots just after midnight Feb. 9, no one quite knows how the early voting tradition started. But most agree it had something to do with rival photographers. (AP Photo/Jim Cole, File)

By Associated Press January 31, 2016 1 min read

CONCORD, N.H. (AP) – Decades ago, the fierce competition to win the New Hampshire primary wasn’t limited to the presidential candidates. News photographers also fought to be first.

In Dixville – one of three tiny towns where voters will cast ballots just after midnight Feb. 9 – no one quite knows how the early voting tradition started. But most agree it had something to do with rival photographers.

In one telling, a United Press International photographer not only urged the owner of the Balsams Grand Resort Hotel to host midnight voting in 1960 but nudged the hands of the clock ahead to gain an advantage over rivals in Hart’s Location. Others say it was an Associated Press photographer who suggested the early voting idea to hotel owner Neil Tillotson.