Waiting outside polling stations across the country, American voters were a vision of orderly calm and quiet nerves.
The solemn nature of the voting process provided a contrast to the hyper-charged campaign cycle, marked by two assassination attempts on Donald Trump.
"I was thinking about the future of this nation, and frankly the free world," Brockett Within, a 65-year-old New Yorker, told AFP as he cast his vote Tuesday at a polling station in the East Village.
In Georgia, one of seven swing states that will decide the outcome of the vote, 27-year-old beauty queen Ludwidg Louizaire said she was aware of the stakes for the nation.
"I think we all can agree that no matter what happens today, history will be made," said the winner of the Miss Georgia competition this year.
"The main issue for me is the continuation of our democracy," Ken Thompson, a 66-year-old mason told AFP, at Edison Elementary school in Erie, Pennsylvania.
- 'America first' -
Around the country, voters confided in AFP about the issues that had tipped their decisions, often echoing the main talking-points of the campaign from immigration, abortion rights to the economy.
"We don't need another four more years of high inflation, gas prices, lying," Darlene Taylor, 56, told AFP in Erie, a bellwether county in Pennsylvania which is the biggest and most prized of the swing states.
Wearing a homemade T-shirt bearing the names of Trump and his running mate J.D. Vance, she said her main issue was to "close the border" to migrants.
"America comes first, and (Kamala) Harris is not going to support that," added Taylor, who said she lived on disability benefits.
Liz Orlova, a 22-year-old in New York, said that abortion rights had been "at the forefront of my mind" as she voted in the East Village.
US Supreme Court justices appointed by Trump helped overturn the federal right to abortion in 2022 -- an issue Harris has pledged to tackle if elected.
"It's super messed up that across the country that particular right is being taken away from people," said Orlova.
- 'Way more people' -
Turn-out is expected to be crucial in Tuesday's vote. Democrats tend to do well among more educated and wealthier voters who cast ballots regularly, while Trump has courted more marginalized citizens who often opt out.
Both are hoping to turn out young voters in their support.
The lines outside polling stations along the east coast early suggested that many Americans had embraced calls from the candidates, celebrities and activists to carry out their duty.
"It's way, way, way more people here than the last" election, Marchelle Beason, 46, told AFP in Erie after putting on an "I voted" sticker.
Others confessed that they would simply be relieved when the blanket political adverts on television and the internet would end -- and a vote that has kept the country on edge all year will finally be decided.
"I'll be glad when it's over," Guy Mills, 62, told AFP in New York.
