From a New England hamlet to a critical swing state neighboring Washington's halls of power to the storm-scarred streets of New York, Americans lined up Tuesday to cast ballots for Barack Obama or Mitt Romney.

Many were patient, some were jittery and still others -- those still enduring power outages and the mountainous mess and wreckage left by superstorm Sandy last week -- were perhaps understandably a bit cranky.

Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney cast his ballot Tuesday in the U.S. elections with his wife Ann before heading to Ohio and Pennsylvania for one last push to get out the vote.

The Romneys voted at the Beech Street Center in the town of Belmont, Massachusetts, the community center where they voted in the Republican primary in March.

As Americans head to the polls on Tuesday, the tight White House race between President Barack Obama and Republican Mitt Romney has narrowed to a fight over less than 10 states.

Obama's strategy is to solidify his last line of defense in the industrial Midwest, and to try to pluck away several insurance states from Romney's target list elsewhere.

Free Patriotic Movement leader MP Michel Aoun criticized on Tuesday the March 14 camp's decision to boycott government work and national dialogue, blaming it for the repercussions of its actions.

He said after the Change and Reform bloc's weekly meeting: “Why are they carrying out the boycott? I do not understand. There is no need for dialogue now and the March 14 MPs should resign if they want to boycott parliament.”

Impatient New Jersey voters queued up amid rubble and rotting rubbish left by superstorm Sandy as U.S. 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 at 6:40 am (1140 GMT). About 60 people waited in the sharp morning chill.

Either he is wearing the best poker face in politics, or Mitt Romney is his own truest believer, so sure of his destiny as the next U.S. president that he refuses to contemplate the alternative.

"Confidence" is the singular word that senior strategist Stuart Stevens used to describe the Republican nominee's mood going into Tuesday's election, despite polls showing a slight lead for President Barack Obama.

Residents of the tiny northeastern town of Dixville Notch cast the first ballots of the White House race on Tuesday, with Barack Obama and Mitt Romney each receiving five votes.

The first-in-the-nation vote, held shortly after midnight, was tied for the first time in its history, another indication of the knife's edge separating the two candidates in a race that should be decided by the end of the day.

U.S. celebrities weighed in on the race for the White House on election eve Monday, endorsing their favorite candidates on Twitter or making last-ditch pleas for their followers to get out and vote.

Rapper Snoop Dogg endorsed the Democratic incumbent Barack Obama, tweeting: "Make sure u all vote 2morrow!! @BarackObama @MichelleObama."

West African army chiefs met Tuesday to study a proposal drafted by international experts on how their troops could expel Islamic extremists who have occupied northern Mali for months.

The meeting comes seven months after radicals linked to the north African al-Qaida branch took over the vast arid north, triggering fears in the region and among Western powers that the zone could become a new haven for terrorists.

An Egyptian policeman was shot and critically wounded in Sinai on Tuesday when gunmen opened fire on a police patrol, days after three policemen were killed in an ambush in the restive peninsula.

The officer was shot in the neck in the northern city of El-Arish, the site of the deadly attack on Saturday.