time, and i thought, this was no fun. this is exciting to be in the line with everybody else, doing it on d-day. >> and that was the same sentiment we heard at several polling places today. everyone seemed to be joan iing the sport of it all. and here is what the line looked like at c. milton high school. the line went right through the school's gym. harper county said as of earlier today, they were on a path for 84 to 85% turnout for the county. >> lines of people go right through one school gym. >> reporter: this afternoon, we ran into senator ben carden, as he makes his run for reelection. he was at the cross country elementary school with the baltimore mayor. we'll be live with the senator and other democratic candidates tonight as they gather at m & t

bank stadium. a lot of people say it's not just the presidential race that brought them out today, it is the questions. >> that's right. lots of them. same-sex marriage, gambling expansion, and the dream act. we continue our live team coverage right now from northeast baltimore. big turnout today. >> reporter: it has been. here at this elementary school, they had a lot of the big lines this morning, but if you live in this precinct, now might be a good time to sneak over. last person we talked to said it took about 15 minutes to come in and vote. the voting has been brisk here all day. perhaps the most expensive issue of all time, as far as money being spent in this state. we're talking about question 6. today supporters made a last ditch appeal to try to get

people to support it. . >> i think once you let them know that we're not infringing on your religious rights, we're actually protecting them, because not going to change anything inside the church, we're just trying to be send with the state, and then guys understand, and it bringing a lot of attention to the issue, and guys start having a dialogue and talking about it. so i've talked with guys a lot, and some guys didn't want to talk about it, they're all homophobic, and put all of us in a box, saying football players are homophobic, but now you can't say that anymore, guys are talking about the issue, it's important. >> reporter: opponents were also not idle today, they have been passing out flyers encouraging people to vote against that issue. the other questions are also

bringing people to the polls, and we'll talk more about those issues coming up a little later. >> all right, rosie. plenty of questions on our balance hot, but the spotlight will be on the two presidential nominees, and tonight president obama will be in his hometown of chicago. he took time to thank his supporters today. >> reporter: at a stop in a chicago campaign office this morning, president obama urged people from both political parties to vote this election day. >> make sure that you exercise this precious right that we have. >> reporter: the president closed out his final campaign event with a night time rally in iowa. the same state where a victory four years ago launched a successful bid to the white house. >> i've come back to iowa one more time to ask for your vote. >> reporter: during an emotional rally in front of 20,000 supporters, the president asked voters for another opportunity to fight for them. >> we've got more work to do. >> reporter: at one point, the president teared up.

>> to all of you who have lived and breathed the hard work of change, i want to thank you. >> reporter: mitt romney was greeted with cheers as he left a polling station in belmont, massachusetts this morning. he gop nominee cast his vote before going tout do some election-day campaigning in pennsylvania and ohio. >> yeah, feel great about ohio. thank you. >> reporter: after several days of a neck and neck race, the latest abc news washington post tracking poll has president obama opening his biggest lead since july. most analysts point to hurricane sandy as this year's october surprise. >> this race was and has been always close, and it has had a slight electoral advantage for the president, but has had a slight popular vote advantage for mitt romney. that has changed in the last few days. >> reporter: the president is doing some media interviewing, and playing a little basketball, and of course he'll address thousands of supporters

tonight or tomorrow morning. >> republican presidential hopeful mitt romney continues to blaze a campaign trail. romney even squeezed in two campaign appearances while the rest of the country voted. >> reporter: mitt and ann romney cast their ballot this morning, hoping republicans in key swing states do the same. head out for final push in pennsylvania and ohio, he was brimming with confidence about his chancing in the buckeye state. >> feel good about ohio. >> reporter: they need to overcome president obama's advantage among early voter. a three point edge has been shown among them according to one poll. romney is hoping that his pennsylvania and ohio visits turn out his base. >> your work here will help me become the next president of the need. >> reporter: president obama and the first lady are at home in chicago. the president stopped by a campaign office. >> you have to tell the whole

team over there i appreciate them. >> reporter: he ended his re- election bid with an emotional rally last night in iowa. >> for those who have worked hard for change, i want to thank you. >> reporter: the romney thinks there is strong support with independents and will make this the site of tonight's victory party. >> well, the turnout everywhere has been great, and as people get off work, they're heading to the poll. >> slight. our rive team coverage -- our live team coverage continues from barton middle school. >> reporter: well, you know, virginia always gets inspired for elections. aside from all of those political adds, the debates, even the questions that you mentioned earlier, we don't know exactly what the pulse is, but the people are turning out. we understand there was as much as an hour wait this morning at numerous precincts in about baltimore county. you can see a precinct here that is currently being used by

the people from stonily, has people standing room only. we understand there's a 30 to 40-minute weight here. some voters have turned out here, and not been turned away, but decide on their own to step away, and decided to come back maybe a little later in hopes it might ease up. it's been the same at a lot of areas we've been at, including trinity assembly of god, ridgely middle school, all starting to pick up as people get off of work. and here at this middle school, their precinct is only taking about 15 minutes right now, so a lot of them finding their way over maybe last-minute like -- or, well, not last-minute, they still have a couple of hours, just probable live gets off work. there is one tell tale sign, you can really tell when you're in a hot spot where a lot of people are expected, because the girl scouts have set up shop over here selling cookies.

and there's no better sign. if anybody knows how to find the pulse, it's the girl scouts. so certainly a lot of people expected to continue voting. they still have another three hours or so, and we can anticipate if the girl scouts are happy, everyone will be happy here in maryland as far as the turnout goes. reporting live from baltimore. jeff hager. back to you. >> they were almost out the door there. everyone vote counts, even in space. johnson space center e-mail add digital version of the ballot up to the astronauts and the international space station, and when the ballot is complete, it comes back to earth on the same path, and is then sent to the voting authorities, and this system was made possible by a 1997 bill passed in texas. most astronauts live in or near houston. the long lines in new york went for casting a ballot this morning instead of just long lines for supplies. folks headed to make shift

voting sites, and since transportation has been hard to come by, there were free mta shuttles. the buses were running every 15 to 20 minutes, carrying voters to alternate voting sites. polls there will be open until 9:00. come on, everybody. we're watching history here tonight, locally and nationally, and ab c2 will be carrying the extensive coverage of this election tonight live. we'll have reporters all over the place. we'll have reports at 25 minutes after the hour, and five minutes before each hour, starting at 8:00 when the polls close. and when big races are called here locally, we will break into abc coverage and give you the results right away. and we're streaming live on at&t news.com. this is the way -- on abc2 news.com. when those races are called, get a breaking news alert from

abc 2. >> not to be lost on this beautiful day, the weather was aimers that's heading our way. >> yeah, tomorrow. let's check in with our most accurate forecast with wyatt. >> by this time tomorrow night, it will be a mess. rain, rain mixed with snow, and even just snowshowers by the time the whole thing ends tomorrow night. in the meantime, a chilly wind chill factor in the upper 30s for those voters this evening. no headaches tonight, but as we look at tomorrow, coastal flood warnings up. we're talking wind gusts to 40 and even higher on the shore from this developing nor'easter. it is just beginning to strengthen, and up the coast tomorrow. but for this evening, just some chilly voting out there. we'll talk about the nor'easter and the timing straight ahead. coming up, we will show you what a four alarm fire did in south point, and why this looks awfully familiar perform >> plus they're still in the

dark, and still without heat, but they are pulling out all of the stops to make their vote count in the hurricane sandy aftermath. >> and those for question 7 are really gambling on a victory tonight.

oh! green mountain coffee! how do you always have my favorite coffee? well, inside the brewer, there's a giant staircase. and the room is filled with all these different kinds of coffee and even hot cocoa, and you'll always find your favorite. with so many choices, keurig has everyone's favorite. and i just press this button. brew what you love, simply. keurig.

for the second time, a huge fire has hit the same building in settles point. it happened this morning filling the sky with smoke. >> reporter: for the second time in about five months, baltimore city firefighters battled a fire in the 500 block of south broadway in fells point. witnesses described the fire. >> when she let go, i mean, she just went up in a ball of fire. it wasn't like it was an accelerator behind it, knock like that. it was just burning. it was just hot.

>> reporter: the call came out about 4:25 tuesday morning. when crews arrived, the building was totally engulfed in flames. it once contained a small supermarket that served the area. the building dates back to the 1920s it. >> didn't explode, it just burned. it just come up through the roof. it finally burnt through the roof, and it was just glowing. so, i mean, the inside of the building was basically gutted. >> fire crews shutdown nearby areas from fleet street to eastern avenue and evacuated adjacent buildings to keep people safe. no one was injured in the fire, but fire investigators say the back of the building was partially collapsed. it took a while to put out the fire, because crews had to fight the fire from the outside. it was not safe to go inside the building. >> this is a very labor intense fire, because it's very difficult for us to get to the seat of the fire itself. for the most part, firefighters are trying their best to protect the exposures around the particular fire building, to keep it from spreading any further than what it is.

>> fire officials say this is the same building that was damaged bay five alarm fire in june. neighbors in the community say this second fire seemed suspicious. >> this is the second team that building has been on fire, and they had a fire around on fleet street about a month ago, and it's been a lot of fires down in this area. i don't know what's going on. >> i would say somebody doesn't want the building. this is the second time this has happened to it. it don't take a rocket scientist to figure out that somebody doesn't want this building. >> reporter: the community hopes that investigators can get to the bottom 067 the fires and keep the area safe. >> again, the case of the fire is still under investigation, and authorities still don't have a cause for the fire that happened back in june. this it was demolition taking place on the other side of the building. no word if it had anything to do with the fire this morning. if you are a political junky, you know the race for the white house may all come down to ohio. >> that's right. so who is going to get to dot

the eye on the buckeye state tonight? we have a report from cleveland on the last minute stops there, and all eyes are on though i how. >> reporter: no doubt about that. very intense here in the buckeye state. both sides in the presidential race making visits to northeast ohio over the past couple of hours. first of all, vice president biden arriving at hopkins international airport this morning with his entire family, and the entire group then making their way to one of cleveland's most popular restaurants. that's cleveland's landmark restaurant, where they were met by a very large group of supporters. these last minute visits once again proving the intensity and the importance of ohio's 18 electorial votes, and then we were on the scene when governor romney and his running mate paul ryan then made an unexpected visit to romney's head quarters in richmond heights. >> was a large crowd there to

meet the governor. polls will close they're at 7:30 eastern time. they expect to have all absentee ballots counted, and right here in the warehouse by 8:00, and then memory sticks from all of the polls places are expected to be collected between 8:30 and 9:15, expect something 620,000 ballots. voter turnout is expected to be very, very good for this presidential election, somewhere in the lower 60 percent range. there are 926,000 registered voters here in key oh ga county, and it's going to be an important battleground right they're in ohio as we wait to see whether those important 18 electorle votes either go to governor romney or president obama. back to you guys in the studio in baltimore. all right. pretty decent weather to get out and rock the vote today.

mix of clouds and sunshine, right? and cold. no question, colder than normal. that was the deal today all across the state. not just here in downtown bellaire, in baltimore, as well. despite the sunshine, tough time getting out of the 40s today. most spots stuck in the mid- 40s, in fact. that's almost 15 degrees below average. and as we take a look out there right nowdown, conditions chilly. winds are east-northeast at 8 miles per hour. daylight saving time coming to an end, of course, and frost burg still looking like a winter wonder land out to the west. low 40s now, mid-40s on the eastern shore. we're heading down to the 30s against tonight. i don't think we'll see the 20s like last night, that deep freeze. chill coming off the water, and in fact coastal flood concerns going up through the day tomorrow, as we bring in this potent nor'easter type system. again, right now, feeling more

like 30s out there for people out if line in front of those schools, and voting centers, just got to layer up. if you're still going to head out to the polls, you have a little time here. put on the gloves and mitts, because it will be cold out there for you, no question about that. mid and upper 30s. we still have not seen the real impact of this system that's to our south right now. let's give you a little look at it here in terms of timing. we're finding that we're dry through the rest of the voting period. early tomorrow morning, we begin to bring in some rain showers, and it will be very chilly through the day tomorrow, so as we push through toward yours evening commute, showers and snowshowers probably mixing together. now, the heaviest rain and the highest winds will be on the eastern shore, especially along the beaches, delaware, new jersey, yarns they don't need any tidal surge right now. they're going to get a little bit of that. then showers will turn over to

snowshowers, and a slushy coating, and then it all ends, it blows out to sea. i don't think this will stick particularly well, but rooftops, grassy surfaces, that sort of thing, it's very possible we could see a half inch of slush around by the time this thing blows out of here. right now the system is off the carolinas. still brewing opinion windy conditions will come in behind this thing, and the whole ball of wax will push to the new england states as we go into thursday. we'll actually warm up pretty quickly on friday into saturday, but this thing making that passing, that close pass off the coast, and even as we look at it right now, already a couple of rain showers on the northern part of the system knocking on the door there toward virginia beach. so it's not that far away. tonight 32, mostly clear, near freezing conditions. tomorrow 42. 42, that is it. that's some 20 degrees below average. cloudy, windy, those mixed showers changing to some wet snowshowers tomorrow night. still less than an inch of slush in total.

most of that grass, car tops, that kind of thing, on the high end. and into the weekend, you'll like this, conditions clearing out nicely. we start to bring back some -- we call it mild weather right now. it's actually just average. not warmer than average. average is 62or 63 right now, but we'll take it after the cold weather we've had ever since sandy, we'll take it. this more eventer an unwelcome friend, i say that word -- nor'easter not a welcome friend, i say that word fa seriously. it's not that why want right now. >> i think governor christie is already evacuating people from the water again. >> yeah, no dune line. >> belter safe than sorry. >> absolutely. >> afraid of flying? after this, you may be scared of driving near an airport. plus, you are what you eat. so if what you eat is

specifically designed to fight cancer? some new technology we'll explain to you when abc 2 news comes right back.

a plane colliding with on suv drive on the tar mock of a texas airport. watch as the student driver, william davis, tries to land his single engine plain in roanoke, and then hits this black suv. it was all taped by his wife. you can see the planed fixed wheel hitting the car, and nearly ripping off the roofer. >> we couldn't see anything at all, and just all of a sudden equipment was falling into the car. >> now, the video doesn't show stop signs painted on the roadway. the airport said the signs are supposed to alert drive ores to stop when the runway is active.

the faa is going to monitor the situation. a day any the water turned dangerous for a california family. their 25-foot boat capsized. two children were trapped inside the boat's cabin which was filling up quickly with water. five others were rescued after clinging on to the hull. none of the boaters were wearing a life jacket. one had minor injuries. no word on what caused the boat to overturn. well, our big story of the day, making voting a priority when you don't have electricity or heat. >> we're going to take you to the states hit hardest by superstorm sandy and see how they are exercising their right to vote. >> and we go cross country to see if other states are as energized as we are. >> abc 2 is working for you right now. how to find some extra cash before black friday.

how you doing? alright, alright. now this is a party. what is that? go, go, go. mmm. give me some of that sauce. i don't know, i think i might bail. yeah, it's pretty dead. [ male announcer ] one is never enough. new kfc dip'ems.

freshly prepared tenders dipped in irresistible sauces. this is it. now this is a party. [ male announcer ] try a 3 piece combo for just $5. today tastes so good.