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NEW YORK (CBS) ― The voting booths in New York City opened at 6 a.m. Tuesday and are scheduled to close at 9 p.m. In those 15 hours millions of people will cast their vote for the next president. Already long lines have been reported at many of the city's polling sites, with some voters having arrived as early as 4 a.m. -- two hours before the polls opened.

Roger Clark showed up in his wheelchair, in the dark, at 5:45 a.m. to vote at the Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis High School in Manhattan's Times Square.

Clark, commenting on Barack Obama's candidacy, said: "I never thought I would live to see this. It's a miracle."

Board of Elections spokeswoman Valerie Vazquez-Rivera confirmed that the turnout was heavy Tuesday. She said the city has 34,000 workers at 1,371 polling places.

Brooklyn resident Venus Kevin arrived at her Crown Heights polling site 10 minutes before it opened. said the 49-year-old: "The line was already down the block and around the corner."

Despite the expectations of daunting lines, New York City residents aren't discouraged. "I'll do whatever it takes. I'm voting," said Carol Steinhauer of Pelham.

"The line, perhaps the longest I've seen, it is out to the edge there," said Upper East Side resident Keith Gould, who is a regular at this voting location.

The gymnasium inside PS 269 in Brooklyn was packed as well - wall to wall with people - many waiting for more than an hour and a half to cast their ballots in this historic election. "I'm very proud, very proud. This is a historic moment no matter what the outcome. I am very proud," said Flatbush resident Yvette Bryant.

Sherry Moody, a mother of six, woke up her voting age children to get to the polls. Shaheira, 18, expressed adamant excitement, "I feel very excited."

"I told everyone at my office even if I am very late for work, if I have to stand on line, it's worth it…" said Duon Minto of Brooklyn.

The wait was almost as long on the Upper East Side of Manhattan where former Governor Eliot Spitzer was there with his wife Silda. "This is great. It shows the public is concerned. This is what you should see on Election Day," said the former governor.

The wait was even longer for Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who stood on line for close to 40 minutes, and while he loved the turnout, he worried about the condition of voting machines across the city: "The bigger problem is long term. For the Board of Elections to be unable to modernize the voting machines, it's a problem. These voting machines are ancient."

"The interest in the election has been amazing as evidenced by the record number of people filling out absentee ballots," said Marcus Cederqvist, executive director of the NYC Board of Elections. There are 1,351 poll sites, 8,800 machines and more than 30,000 workers, but can New York City handle this historic election, especially since there is no early voting?

"We've tried to prepare for every possible contingency," Cederqvist said.

But to avoid the long lines, confusion and headaches people need to plan ahead. "I'll probably go around 10. It won't be so crowded," said Cynara Crandall of the Upper East Side.

"I am trying to go early, like 6 o'clock in the morning, as early as possible 'cause I work at 7 o'clock," added Dorothy Miller of Harlem.

And it's important to remember that it's against the law to wear candidate paraphernalia. No t-shirts, no hats, no pins with a candidate's name will be allowed. If you do you can be kicked out of the voting station.  It's also a good idea to know your assembly and election districts. And if you can, vote in the afternoon instead of in the morning or after work.

Even in reliably Republican states where Barack Obama has little chance of winning the presidential vote on Tuesday, unprecedented numbers of registrations and early votes have been tallied, and elections officials are predicting a record turnout in places where neither candidate even bothered to campaign.

An aggressive and well-financed get-out-the-vote campaign helped Obama's campaign mobilize unprecedented numbers of African-American and new voters who could help decide the presidential election by swinging states like North Carolina and Virginia to the Democrat.

Some problems have already been reported this morning. In Virginia, CBS News reporter Armin Keteyian said more than 400 voter complaints have been registered in Virginia, including 170 in Norfolk alone.

The high turnout is not without its risks: CBS producer Sarah Wulfeck reported that the long line of voters she was waiting on in New York City was egged by residents of a nearby apartment building.

But even in so-called "red" states like Alabama, Utah, Nebraska and Oklahoma, Republican strongholds where McCain could post double-digit wins, Obama's candidacy helped boost registration numbers, particularly in urban areas. Republicans countered by mobilizing their own base, a process aided by John McCain's vice presidential pick, Sarah Palin, who's popular among conservatives.

"It may not shift Alabama from red to blue, or shift Tennessee from red to blue," Ferrel Guillory, an expert in Southern politics at the University of North Carolina, said of the turnout projections. "But it could have an effect over the long term."

And while these states have been comfortably in McCain's column for months, a record turnout could benefit candidates further down the ballot. As in swing states, the consensus among experts is that the trend favors Democrats.

Roughly 9 percent of the electorate still claim to be undecided or likely to change their minds, CBS News director of surveys Kathy Frankovic reports. These voters, Frankovic notes, are mostly conflicted over the economy.

In Alabama, a state that has gone consistently Republican in presidential elections since picking Ronald Reagan in 1980, Obama's army of volunteers conducted voter registration drives that helped push the state's voter rolls past 3 million for the first time, and they registered blacks at a faster rate than whites.

"Obama realized there was no way to wrestle Alabama away from McCain," but a higher African-American turnout is likely to benefit Democrats running for the state Supreme Court and other offices, said D'Linell Finley, a political scientist at Auburn University Montgomery.

The story is similar in Tennessee, which saw many more early voters than in 2004, especially in Democratic-leaning counties; and in South Carolina, where records fell for both registration and absentee voting.

"There are going to be some tight races that normally were not going to be tight," said South Carolina's Republican Party chairman, Katon Dawson, who has no doubts about a McCain victory there but is worried about down-the-ballot contests.

"I think we have very good prospects to pick up a congressional seat or two," said his Democratic counterpart, Carol Fowler.

In Utah, Kentucky, Louisiana - all solidly Republican states - this election has inspired intense interest.

Nebraska, which has given all five of its electoral votes to Republicans in every election since 1964, fell just 3,000 short of a record for voter registration, but Secretary of State John Gale was forecasting record turnout anyway.

And even there "Republicans are not gaining to the same degree as Democrats and independents," he said. "You definitely have to attribute it to the Obama campaign."

Nebraska is one of two states that can split its electoral votes, and Obama opened three offices in Omaha to try to shave off one of those votes.

But even as Obama managed to inspire Democrats in decidedly Republican states, Republicans had a secret weapon of their own in rallying conservative voters.

McCain's selection of Palin was critical to building enthusiasm among the party's traditional base, said Merle Black, a political scientist at Emory University in Atlanta. "She is giving a voice to a lot of conservative voters - particularly evangelicals - in a way McCain never could do on his own," he said. "She's a heroine in the religious community."

Early voting in Oklahoma set an all-time high, and a record turnout on Election Day appeared likely, according to Mike Clingman, election board secretary. Polls there have shown Obama getting about a third of the vote, about the same as John Kerry four years ago.

State Democratic Party Chairman Ivan Holmes is expecting a strong Obama turnout in urban areas, but he anticipates a backlash in some conservative areas where the candidate's race may be a factor - "especially among older voters." Obama is aiming to become America's first black president.

Texas saw its voter registration hit a record 13.5 million this year. But neither presidential candidate spent much time in a state that has gone Republican in every election since 1980.

Randall Dillard, spokesman for the secretary of state, said both sides were driving the registration boom.

"History can be made," he said, "no matter how this race goes."

Obama already came up a big winner in the presidential race in Dixville Notch and Hart's Location, N.H., where tradition of having the first Election Day ballots tallied lives on.

Obama defeated McCain by a count of 15-to-6 in Dixville Notch, where a loud whoop accompanied the announcement. The town of Hart's Location reported 17 votes for Obama, 10 for McCain and two for write-in Ron Paul. Independent Ralph Nader was on both towns' ballots but got no votes. Both towns had favored George W. Bush in the last two elections.

Dixville Notch's first voter, following tradition, was picked ahead of the midnight voting and the rest of the town's 21 registered voters followed suit in Tuesday's first minutes.

Town Clerk Rick Erwin said the northern New Hampshire town is proud of its tradition, but said "the most important thing is that we exemplify a 100 percent vote."

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