Barack Obama elected 44th president

‘Transformation of America’
In the end, Florida, the scene of electoral chaos in recent votes, had little impact. The state had been watched closely, but results there and in some other closely contested states were delayed until after Obama clinched his victory, as record numbers of voters flocked to polling stations, energized by an election in which they would select either the nation’s first black president or its first female vice president.

The percentage of Americans who voted was unmatched in at least a generation and perhaps since 1908, according to election experts. Secretaries of state estimated turnouts approaching 90 percent in Virginia and Colorado and 80 percent or more in big states like Ohio, California, Texas, Virginia, Missouri and Maryland.

Voters were lured to the polls by the historic nature of an election that held the potential to yield an African-American president and reject the party of an unpopular president.

Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., a legend of the civil rights movement of the 1960s, said he was “overwhelmed” and had broken down in tears.

Video Lewis: Struggle was worth it Nov. 4: Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., talks about Barack Obama’s historic breakthrough. MSNBC

“I never imagined, I never even had any idea I would live to see an African-American president of the United States,” Lewis said in an interview on MSNBC.

“We have witnessed tonight in America a revolution of values, a revolution of ideals,” Lewis said. “There’s been a transformation of America, and it will have unbelievable influence on the world.”

Ellora Lyons, 81, of Peoria, Ill., recalled boarding a train to Oklahoma with her two oldest boys in 1948. Her brother had been killed in an accident, and they were going to his funeral.

“There was a sign on this train that said, 'n-----s to the back,’” she said. “And we couldn’t drink out of the same water fountain.”

“I remember my mom and my dad talking about black folks being not able to vote,” Lyons said. “I never thought that I would see a black man [in the White House], but I was hoping that one day that a black man would run for president.”

All told, election experts said nearly 140 million Americans voted, many of them minority, immigrant and younger Americans who were casting their ballots for the first time.

Maria Reyes, who immigrated from El Salvador and was sworn in as a citizen in August, was one of them. She cast her ballot with help from her daughter, Elvia.

“It’s wonderful time for our country right now — Obama!” Reyes said as she waved a small American flag.

In the Little Saigon section of Los Angeles, Timothy Ngo, a Vietnamese immigrant, turned out to support McCain.

“I came here as a refugee, so Mr. McCain and I grew up and fought in the same war in Vietnam,” Ngo said.

Obama, McCain cast their ballots
Obama and his wife, Michelle, voted with their young daughters at their sides at Beulah Shoesmith Elementary School in Hyde Park, Ill. The family was ushered inside ahead of a line of their neighbors that wrapped around the block.

Fellow voters watched in silence and snapped cell-phone pictures. They cheered when Obama held up his validation slip with a smile and said, “I voted.”

“The journey ends, but voting with my daughters, that was a big deal,” he told reporters later.

Obama’s final days of campaigning were bittersweet: He was mourning the loss of his grandmother Madelyn Dunham, who helped raise him but died of cancer Sunday night and never got to see the results of the historic election.

In Delaware, Obama’s running mate, Sen. Joe Biden, went to the polls with his elderly mother. Speaking to reporters on his plane, Biden said he had made a deal with his wife, Jill.

“If you get the vice presidency and get elected, you can get a dog,” Biden said his wife told him. “I know what kind I want, [but] I don’t know what kind I’m going to get yet. We’re not there yet. The deal’s not closed yet.”

McCain, meanwhile, cast his ballot early Tuesday at a church near his home in central Phoenix. A small crowd cheered “Go, John, go!” and “We love you!” as he stepped out of a sport utility vehicle with his wife, Cindy. One person carried a sign that read, “Use your brain, vote McCain!”

Palin returned to where her political career began to cast her vote in the snow-dusted, two-story Wasilla City Hall where she once presided as a small-town mayor.

Palin, accompanied by her husband, Todd, voted just after 7 a.m. Tuesday, pushing aside a red, white and blue curtain on a voting booth and handing her white paper ballot to a clerk.

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