AFTER a marathon campaign that ended in the small hours of Tuesday morning, the Republican presidential candidate, Mr Bob Dole, cast his ballot in the town he calls the wellspring of his political values.
On a balmy autumn day in the central Kansas plains, Mr Dole voted shortly after noon at the flag-and-bunting decked First Christian Church in his hometown of Russell. Several dozen townspeople gathered outside to watch their native son.
"I've voted before here lots but never voted for myself for president. I was a little nervous, Mr Dole said after he and his wife, Elizabeth, cast their ballots.
Before voting, he identified himself to election officials, telling them: "My name's Bob Dole." One official, Ms LaRue Covalt, carefully recited the spelling of his name. "Dole, D-O-L-E Robert. R-O-B-E-R-T."
At his final campaign stop hours earlier in Independence Missouri, Mr Dole said those "Russell values" would carry him to an upset victory polls have said he would be denied. He said that on casting his vote in Russell "I will know that this campaign has been rooted in the most important American ideals: duty honour, country and integrity."
"The tide of this election I believe, was turned in diners and bowling alleys, in the heart of a people where the old values endure," he said.
Mr Dole wrapped up a 96-hour non-stop "march to victory" in Independence before a courthouse statue of Harry Truman, the Democrat who pulled off one of America's greatest political upsets when he defied opinion polls to defeat Republican Thomas Dewey in 1948.
"What was true for Harry Truman in 1948 will be true for Bob Dole and Jack Kemp in 1996." the 73-year-old former senator said.
In Dole's last campaign swing, which began on Friday, he made 29 stops in 19 states, covering 10,534 miles (16,950 km). He kept up a breakneck pace around the clock, stopping for only a few hours of sleep in his last-ditch bid to defeat Mr Clinton. He returned to Washington to await the returns.
Senator John McCain of Arizona, a steady travelling companion on the campaign trail, offered an emotional tribute at a rally after midnight in a Des Moines, Iowa, bowling alley.
"This is the last crusade of a great warrior, a member of a generation of Americans who went out and made the world safe for democracy so that we could have lives that were far better for ourselves and for our children," Mr McCain said as Mr Dole stood nearby, appearing choked up by the remarks.
Accompanied by his wife, Hillary, and their daughter, Chelsea, Mr Bill Clinton arrived in his hometown of Little Rock, Arkansas, early in the morning.
The president voted in a downtown polling station, his only scheduled public event before a speech in the evening in front of the former Arkansas legislative building known as the "Old State House", today a registered historic building. The spot is full of symbolism for Mr Clinton. It is there he announced his White House candidacy in October 1991, when he was governor of Arkansas and unknown by most Americans. It was also there 13 months later he gave his acceptance speech after winning the presidency in November, 1992.
Confidence was running so high in Mr Clinton's camp that the president and his entourage flying into the Arkansas state capital aboard Air Force One, broke out celebratory champagne and broke into the Macarena, the wildly popular dance that originated in Spain. It became the party's unofficial dance at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago last August.
Ms Hillary Clinton was the only one to sit it out inflight, but she promised in Chicago that she would dance the Macarena with the Vice-President, Mr Al Gore, tonight.
For Mr Clinton, the day broke on a joyous note, even a triumphal one, but one underscored by the minor strains of melancholy. He packed his final campaign speech in Sioux Falls with emotional memories of his long personal journey.
"This is the last speech of my last campaign," he said shortly after midnight before a crowd of several thousand people chanting "Four More Years!"
"There is no person living in this country today who has been given more gifts, who feels more humble on this night than I do." he said. "Fifty years ago, when I was born in a summer storm to a widowed mother in a little town in Arkansas, it was unthinkable that, I might have ever become president," he said.
The room exploded with applause and the rally wound up in a party spirit, with confetti, tiny fireworks and a country music group playing fell tilt.