These New Hampshire primary voters will truly be first in the nation 

Voters in three towns will head to the polls at midnight.

A handful of New Hampshire primary voters will truly be first in the nation: Three rural New Hampshire towns — Dixville Notch, Millsfield, and Hart’s Location — will open their polls at 12:01 am on Tuesday, February 11, and they’ll likely report their informal results within the hour.

These are the very first New Hampshire residents to cast their day-of primary ballots in the 2020 Democratic primary, and their midnight voting honors a tradition that’s been around for years. New Hampshire has long prized its position as the first primary in the country, timing that allows it to claim that it is “first in the nation,” even though its election is now preceded by the Iowa caucuses.

The midnight voting tradition boasts its own set of unique quirks: The towns holding these votes are so small that they’ve historically been able to tally up the ballots and announce the outcomes shortly after the polls open. In Dixville Notch and Millsfield, there will be wooden ballot boxes where people will be able to drop their submissions. And, in order to hold these specially timed votes, all three places are required to have 100 percent voter turnout, something that’s typically unheard of in most elections.

By opening their polls at midnight, the trio of towns are also continuing a custom that’s been increasingly celebrated over the years: Millsfield held the first-ever midnight vote in 1936, something it initially did in order to become the first place in the US to report out its results to the press and broader public.

“[Genevieve Nadig] organized the first midnight vote in the country in an attempt to upstage Massachusetts,” Millsfield’s chief elections officer Wayne Urso told Vox.

It’s worth noting, however, that while much will be made of these very early returns, these votes are not expected to be predictive of the state’s broader outcome, given the size of the voting pool. In the past, a string of Dixville Notch results for the Republican primary has coincided with the eventual nominee that’s picked by the GOP, though a 2008 analysis by FiveThirtyEight’s Nate Silver concluded that the town’s votes had no predictive effect.

What these votes do represent is the desire to preserve a time-honored custom in a state that highly values such traditions, not least its own established role in the primary calendar.

New Hampshire has long prized its first in the nation status, and these traditions are just another part of it

Ultimately, this midnight practice is one that’s stuck around because of what it represents for each of these towns.

Dixville Notch, a town in the state’s North Country that’s close to the Canadian border, has been the focus of extensive media attention for its famed midnight vote, even though its proceedings will feature just five people this year.

“The midnight vote to Dixville is what snow is to New Hampshire, or what the Boston Red Sox are to Fenway Park,” developer and Dixville voter Les Otten told Vox. “These things have become synonymous with each other.”

This year’s midnight vote was nearly canceled because the town almost missed the five-person threshold that was necessary, a challenge that emerged in the wake of scrutiny about voters’ residencies from state election officials in 2016. Otten, however, became the town’s much-needed fifth resident and will be among the handful of people dropping their ballot at the Balsams Resort on Tuesday.

Meanwhile in Millsfield, voters are set to gather at the local tavern, while in Hart’s Location, they’ll huddle at the town hall.

In the past, presidential candidates including the late Sen. John McCain have frequented these towns as key campaign stops, though fewer have passed through this cycle.

Regardless of the attention they get, though, these towns are as determined as the state itself to maintain their positions in the primary. “While there are practical reasons, there’s also the reason of some local pride ... of saying ‘Let’s get our mark on the election earlier than anyone else,’” Millsfield’s chief elections officer Urso said.

Ella Nilsen contributed reporting to this article.