Election day reports from around Florida

MIAMI – Barack Obama supporters handed out flyers, sold T-shirts and blasted his speeches from their hot dog stands near polling sites in the predominantly black Miami neighborhood of Liberty City.

"Give me one of them pieces of history," Edward Chestnut said asking for an Obama sign.

Chestnut, a 62-year-old carpenter and Vietnam veteran wearing a shirt with Obama and Martin Luther King Jr., said King was smiling down on him.

"I marched with Martin Luther King in Selma, Alabama. I started voting...in South Carolina. We had a poll tax back then. You had to pay to vote. I've seen all kinds of discrimination. But today I am a part of history. Rain, shine sleet or snow, I'm going to be here all day," he said.

A few miles away along Martin Luther King Boulevard, several entrepreneurs set up stands selling Obama T-shirts and fireworks. They were doing brisk business by midday. The most popular shirts were of Obama with his wife and daughters and one of Obama in black sunglasses with the words "Mission Possible."

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MIAMI LAKES, Fla. — Cynthia Rodriguez, 23, was among the first in line, outside a Methodist church in Miami where voters lined up at 5:30 a.m.

She said she was voting against Obama, rather than for McCain.

"I don't like either of the two, but I dislike one a little less. I feel very strongly about the person I don't want — Obama. His ideas are too socialist."

Rodriguez tried to vote early on Sunday, but when she learned her parents had to wait more than six hours that day she decided to wait until Tuesday.

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HOLLYWOOD, Fla. — "Bingo is canceled tonight due of the election," read the sign outside a South Florida polling site with a large population of seniors.

Former poll worker Helen Freed leaned on her walker and surveyed the waiting masses.

"I've never seen anything like this," said Freed, a widow who voted for Obama because of his stance on health care and the economy.

"First, I cannot stand John McCain and his insipid smile. And Palin, how could they choose her," she said. "I have grandchildren; I worry about their future."

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FORT MYERS, Fla. — First-time voter Troy Eckenrode, 18, cast his vote for John McCain.

"I like that he's a war hero who has experience in government," said Eckenrode, who waited less than an hour in Lee County where residents have not voted for a Democratic presidential candidate since Franklin Roosevelt won the county in 1944.

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GAINESVILLE, Fla. — Kari Williams, 22, a child advocate at a domestic abuse shelter and registered Democrat, said she voted for Barack Obama after voting for Bush in 2004.

"I just associate John McCain with George Bush," said Williams, who said McCain's choice of Gov. Sarah Palin sealed the deal for her. "She's just completely inexperienced. It would just be scary to think about her being president."

"I wasn't informed when I voted. I was just following in my parents' footsteps," said Williams who researched the issues herself this year. "I actually know what I'm voting for or against."

In the heavy Republican city of Naples, Holly Baldwin, 50, stood outside a polling site holding red, white and blue balloons urging people to vote.

A registered Republican, she voted for Obama. "It would have been different if there had been a different vice president," she said. "If McCain had picked Mitt Romney, I would have voted for that ticket." While McCain VP choice of Sarah Palin frightens her, she said, she thought the Obama ticket is the best for the country.

"It's pretty lonely being an Obama supporter in Naples," she said with a laugh. "My family's giving me a lot of grief."

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RIVIERA BEACH, Fla. — In this predominantly black city residents were giddy with anticipation over a possible Obama win. One woman turning into the polling place called out through her car window: "Obama's party at my house."

Mayor Bishop Thomas Masters said there was a new sense of democratic urgency among the community, with lines long enough to prove it.

"I've been here 21 years. I've never seen anything like that before," said Masters. "They want to be a part of history. They want to be a part of the movement for change."

"I thought I would never live to see the day," Masters said of a possible black president.

She said rumors and anxiety over Obama votes not being counted also explained the large turnout. Black voters are hoping Obama's win would be by such a wide margin that possible disenfranchisement in some places wouldn't matter.

"I think a lot of people are nervous about it," he said.