Obama Casts His Vote

CHICAGO (AP) – Barack Obama has cast his ballot in the election he hopes will make him the country’s first black president.

He and his wife, Michelle, were among the first to vote after polls opened at their neighborhood polling place in Chicago.

They cast their paper ballots in side-by-side booths, as their two young daughters looked on.

Obama later joked that he had to check who is wife was voting for after she took so long.

The family had been ushered inside ahead of the line that wrapped around the block.

His Hyde Park neighbors cheered when he held up his validation slip with a smile and said, “I voted.”

Obama voted a few minutes after William Ayers, the 1960s radical who lives in the neighborhood and whom Republicans tried to link to Obama in the campaign.

Next on Obama’s schedule is a final campaign stop in Indiana.

Then he plans a game of basketball with friends and staff, before watching the returns at a Chicago hotel room.