Pre-Dawn Crowds in Harlem

Fifteen minutes before Charlie and Alma Rangel arrived to vote at this Harlem elementary school, there were already 64 voters standing on line.

Carole Branch, a 41-year-old project architect who lives around the corner in the Lenox Terrace apartments (where the Rangels also live), got there first.

"My mother-in-law told me to wake up early and beat the rush," Branch said. She said she didn't want to wait in line "but would have" to cast a vote for Barack Obama.

Her mother-in-law, Inez Branch, a 70-year-old retired H.H.C. administrator, stood nearby sipping hot chocolate. "I was looking for change and wanted to vote for Obama," She explained matter-of-factly.

Inez' son, 49-year-old Skip Branch, was walking around in jeans and sneakers.

"I haven't voted in God knows how long," Branch, a bus operator. His wife, Carole, nodded in agreement.

Inez's 79-year-old-sister, Chris Lovelace, also retired from a job as an H.H.C. administrator, said she was excited to vote for Obama.

"It means a lot," she said, hoping it might "give these kids a different outlook." After walking a ways up the street, she returned and reported that the line was stretched "up the block. It's really long."

Election officials had not yet opened the site.