Neil Mitchell's US diary

Today is election day in the United States and it is living confirmation that they love an event.

Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, they tend to celebrate them with an enthusiasm and passion that would be unusual in Australia.

And election day is a big event.

It started at breakfast. I was sitting near a group of about 20 campaign workers. Inevitably, in Washington, they were working for Barack Obama, the Democrat candidate.

This was a breakfast aimed simply at firing them up and getting them on track for the rest of the day.

They drank Obama coffee - a special blend of Hawaiian Kenyan and Indonesian beans - they ate sausages and told jokes and even ran a political trivia quiz.

Then, some with tears in their yes, the headed off to hit the phones.

Their aim was simply to get people to vote.

Remember, voting is not compulsory in the US so if you want to win yo/u have to motivate people to go out and vote. These Obama supporters will spend 12 hours doing that.

Typically, they were superstitious but quietly confident about the result.

Two things made them nervous: waiting lines and rain. If it rains, people don't go out to vote. And certainly the lines are long.

I visited one booth where the waiitng time was at least two hours. The queue of voters stretched around the block for 300 metres.

I spoke to the man who was last in line. He was willing to wait all day if necessary. And he was voting for Obama.

At another booth a young student was on duty to help explain to homeless people how to vote, and wherever you went people were wearing stickers.

In this district of Washington, as it is in several others, campaigning is banned within 30 metres of the polling booth.

That means you cannot wear a political badge or T shirt. People were wearing the shirts covered by jackets, then opening the jacket as they left.