Presidential Rivals in Tight Race for Virginia

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Area Voters Flood Polls Early

Local voters wait patiently through long lines to cast their ballots on Election Day.

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"It's an easy choice." she said. "It would have been nice to have an African-American in office," but she believed Obama's "associations are radical."

Amir Aliabadi, 30, a construction estimator also voted at Marshall. A Republican and native Iranian, Aliabadi voted for Obama because he "wanted to make a statement for the international community. For the past eight years, the U.S. has become the butt of jokes."

At Madison Activity Center in Northern Arlington county, the morning lines greatly subsided by noon. By late afternoon more than 1,500 of the precinct's 3,200 had voted. Pam Gibert, the precinct chief, said the turnout appeared to be more sparse in the afternoon than in 2004 when lines were out the door all day. She attributed this to absentee ballots.

Stephanie Kingree, 36, an events specialist who voted at the Madison Center said he choose Obama because of his selection of Joe Biden as his running mate.

"I think you could judge the candidates based on who they picked as their vice president," she said.

Obama picked a foreign policy expert to help his weakness there whereas she said McCain picked somebody "who could be controlled easily."

In Alexandria, Lisa Schumaier was one of the first to vote at the Cora Kelly Recreation Center and she brought company. Her parents, Peter and Dee, had been Democratic Party activists for years. Although both died and were cremated in 2006, she knew they would want to be part of what she called "this historic election." So she brought a piece of each -- Dad's ashes in her right pocket, Mom's in her left.

"This is the last thing I did before I left the house this morning," she said, pulling tiny bits of hardened white ash from each of her baggy brown shorts pockets. "It's totally weird. But my Dad would be so happy to be here."

The question of whether enthusiasm shown by young people this year would translate into votes on election day received something of an answer at the University of Maryland. Four years ago, a total of 744 people voted in the student union, said student volunteer Andy Buder. This year, that number was surpassed before 11 a.m.

Meanwhile, at George Mason University, officials said someone hacked into the school's e-mail system overnight and sent out a hoax message to about 35,000 people that said: "Please note that election day has been moved to November 5th. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause you."

The bogus e-mail was tracked to a D.C.-based company that works with political campaigns on the Web. The e-mail was routed through wiredforchange.com, a company that provides e-mail and fund-raising services to Democratic and progressive candidates. The company said a German spammer was likely responsible.

In Montgomery, Board of Elections spokeswoman Marjorie Roher reported "a few very tiny machine glitches," almost all of which were fixed over the phone with the help of information technology experts.