Impatient New Jersey voters queued up amid rubble and rotting rubbish left by superstorm Sandy as US presidential election officials scrambled to open makeshift polling stations on time.
In Hoboken, which lies just across the Hudson River from New York City and got hammered during the hurricane-strength storm last week, one of the makeshift polling stations opened 40 minutes late. About 60 people waited in the sharp morning chill.
"You're really late," one voter complained.
When the alternative station finally opened, a volunteer worker came out and told the grumbling crowd: "Please excuse the appearance of this place, two days ago it was under two feet of water."
Garbage and oily mud from the flood lined the sidewalks outside the polling station. Furniture, broken drywall, and plastic bags and scattered items including a Woody Allen DVD were piled waist high in some places.
But Adora Agim, an immigrant from Nigeria who was backing President Barack Obama for re-election, said the chaos was not enough to stop her from voting. "I have lived in a Third World country where your vote does not matter," she said. "It's nice to be somewhere where it matters."