NPR News 2012-11-07 加文本

NPR News 2012-11-07

From NPR News in Washington, I’m Lakshmi Singh.

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney is rallying every vote he can before the polls closed tonight in Massachusetts, where he will return this evening and watch the returns. Between now and then, he and his family are making final appeals in a few battleground states. Romney is speaking to his grandkids after voting in Belmont. He and running mate Paul Ryan are holding an event this afternoon in Cleveland, Ohio, which is among the handful of states critical to the presidential candidates. Meanwhile President Obama back in Illinois to await voter results. But he still pumped into a campaign office today where he telephoned unsuspecting supporters in Wisconsin and thanked them. After one call, President Obama joked that the voter on the other end of the phone had no idea that she was speaking to the president himself.

Well, turnout is reported to be heavy in many areas this general election with people waiting hours to cast a ballot. NPR’s Craig Windham reports at a one polling place in the battleground state of Virginia people are standing in line up to two hours to vote.

Kate Skidmore says she doesn’t mind the wait because this presidential election is important.

“It’s so close that I think every vote actually matters.”

Most of the voters here including Porter Byers and Kate Helfel say they base their decision on one key issue.

“Obviously the economy, very hard to say anything else at this point.”

“I’m interested in pushing to get jobs back and get the economy back to where it was.”

But some, such as Nicole Todorela, were focused on other issues.

“Maintaining education funding at the federal level, and we seriously say we need to bring down the costs of college.”

All of these voters say they are glad that the barrage of mainly negative campaign ads will finally come to an end today. Craig Windham, NPR News, Arlington, Virginia.

New York City still recovering from the super storm relocated many voters to new polling sites. NPR’s Margot Adler reports an executive order signed by Governor Andrew Cuomo allows people to file a provisional ballot at any polling site in the state.

In Staten Island, a polling place was set up without power at a school in Midland Beach. Police helped light flares for poll workers who needed light before sunrise. The MTA is running free voter shuttles for people in Staten Island, the Rockaways and Coney Island to ferry them to alternative polling sites. On the lowery site of Manhattan, relocated voters said voting went smoothly. Next to the polling site was a gas station, closed yesterday. A line of 15 people with individual containers were filling up. Fuel is still a problem. Margot Adler, NPR News, New York.

In Florida, site of down to the wire voting in past elections, NPR’s Debbie Elliott is covering a polling site in Tampa.

Here in Florida, people understand just how close this election is, and they are wanting to make sure that their vote is counted. Both Republicans and Democrats are saying they didn’t mind waiting the hour in line, because they felt like this was their one chance to make a difference, and that if they didn’t vote, they might be sorry later.

NPR’s Debbie Elliott.

This is NPR News.

Massachusetts voters will decide today whether to allow physician-assisted suicide for terminally ill patients. NPR’s Tovia Smith reports Massachusetts would be the third state to do so following Oregon and Washington.

The cases both for and against the measure have been equally heart-wrenching. Stories of suffering patients who resorted to violent means of ending their lives, or they simply continued to suffer, and tales of those who might have made a terrible mistake because the prognosis turned out to be wrong. Vicky Kennedy says her late husband Ted Kennedy was given two to four months to live but survived fifteen. Instead of assisted suicide, she says more focus should be given to improving palliative and hospice care. Opponents including churches from around the nation have outspent supporters on the measure nearly four to one. Fear in Massachusetts could spark similar efforts elsewhere. Polls show what was a largely lead favoring assisted suicide shrinking over the past month. Tovia Smith, NPR News, Boston.

A military hearing on sex crimes charges against an army general is in its second day in Fort Bragg, North Carolina. A former subordinate testified today the Brigadier General Jeffrey Sinclair threatened to kill her and her family, if she told anyone about their affair. The hearing will determine whether there is enough evidence to court-martial Sinclair on charges of forcible sodomy, wrongful sexual conduct and having inappropriate relationships.

At last check on Wall Street, US stocks were high with the Dow gaining 156 points, more than 1%, at 13,268, NASDAQ up 15 at 3,050, and the S&P 500 up 14 points at 1,431.

This is NPR News.