Barack Obama created history when he went to a polling booth in his home town of Chicago to cast his vote, over 12 days ahead of the November 6 elections, thus becoming the first U.S. President to vote early.
Amidst his hectic electioneering schedule, Mr Obama flew in from Richmond in Virginia to cast his vote at the Martin Luther King Community Center in his home town of Chicago.
As Mr Obama entered the voting he greeted everybody and said it is exciting to get to vote early. After he shook the hands of all the poll workers and handed forms to one of them.
“I think I’ve got paperwork I need to sign in front of you,” he told an elderly woman handling his forms.
“This is the first time a president ever going to be early voting,” he said while waiting. “That’s pretty exciting,” Mr Obama said.
After that the woman election official asked for his driver’s licence for identification purposes.
“Oh, you’re right,” he said, reaching into his pocket.
“I’ve got my driver’s licence. Now ignore the fact that there’s no gray hair in that picture,” he said. Following this the election official asked him a question about paperwork, something about whether it was the right forms, it seemed, according to a White House pool report. “I assume it is,” he said. “I hope so. If not, this will be really embarrassing.”
While waiting, he asked if they had been getting a lot of early voters and was told they were. “It makes such a difference,” he said. Then he remarked, “I’m just glad I renewed my driver’s licence.”
According to the pool report, the woman who took his license held it up and gave it the sort of sceptical examination a TSA officer would. Mr Obama laughed. “Did you see that?” he said, then mimicked her looking over the licence.
Thereafter, Mr. Obama was brought over to one of the voting stations. It took him about three or four minutes to go through the apparently long ballot, including down-ballot races.
