Dixville Notch, New Hampshire (CNN) Ohio Gov. John Kasich and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders got an early boost Tuesday as they won the vote in Dixville Notch, the New Hampshire hamlet that is home to the first vote in the first-in-the-nation primary. 
 
 Sanders shut out Hillary Clinton, 4-0, while Kasich bested Donald Trump, 3-2. 
 
 Those were the only nine votes cast. 
 
 Nestled into the White Mountains in New Hampshire's northernmost reaches, Dixville Notch and two nearby towns, Hart's Location and Millsfield, don't count for many votes, but they do offer one positive for the winners: For nearly a full day, they're ahead in the only results that have been tallied in the Granite State's crucial primary. 
 
 In Millsfield, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz won the GOP vote with nine votes compared to Trump's three, while several other GOP candidates received one vote apiece. Clinton received two votes to beat Sanders, who received one. 
 
 A decades-long tradition 
 
 At Dixville Notch, it's a tradition that dates to the 1960s: A few voters and dozens of political journalists pile into The Balsams, where the votes are cast at midnight and counted immediately. 
 
 The town doesn't have a record of predicting much about New Hampshire's primary. In 2008, then-Illinois Sen. Barack Obama won the Democratic primary by a 7-2 vote, even though Clinton won the state. 
 
 JUST WATCHED What it took to save New Hampshire's midnight vote Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH What it took to save New Hampshire's midnight vote 04:13 
 
 In 2000, George W. Bush beat John McCain, even though the Arizona senator won the state. And in 2012, Jon Huntsman won just as many votes -- two -- as Mitt Romney, the party's eventual nominee. 
 
 A fictionalized version of Dixville Notch and its two early-voting neighbors was featured in an episode of Aaron Sorkin's "West Wing" -- this one dubbed "Hartsfield's Landing." 
 
 Dixville Notch's nine-vote contingency is largely made of the staff redeveloping The Balsams Grand Resort Hotel, which has been closed since its sale in 2011. 
 
 Still open, though, is the resort's wood-paneled Ballot Room, which is decorated with political articles and cartoons dating back to its first-ever midnight vote: the 1960 general election, when Dixville Notch went 9-0 for Richard Nixon over John F. Kennedy. 
 
 A picture of the town's voters from the era is among the art featured in the room. 
 
 Tom Tillotson, the 71-year-old town moderator who has run the midnight voting for decades (and voted for Kasich this time), said "of course it's fun" to keep the tradition alive. 
 
 "This is an example of American democracy where 100% of the voters come out and vote," he said. "It's also a part of a primary process where it's sort of an endangered species where the candidates actually go out and talk to the voters, and anything we can do to keep that alive helps our political process." 
 
 Voters explain their ballots 
 
 "Remember the old Wendy's commercial: 'Where's the beef?'" said the Kasich-supporting Les Otten, 66, the developer who is reworking The Balsams. 
 
 "At the end of the day, there was more meat and there was less noise," he said of Kasich's campaign. "To me, it came down between he and Jeb Bush. I think they were both great, but Kasich managed to stay out of the fray." 
 
 Jeff Stevens, a 60-year-old construction manager on The Balsams, wouldn't say who he supported, but he did vote for a Republican, and his reasoning echoed Trump's "Make America Great Again" slogan. 
 
 "What matters to me in a candidate is someone who loves America and who wants to keep making it better for all Americans," Stevens said. "I'm for any candidate who loves America, wants to make it better, and wants to make it better for all Americans." 
 
 On the Democratic side, it was unanimous: Every blue ballot went for Sanders. 
 
 Clayton Smith, a 28-year-old military veteran who's now a sales and development employee at The Balsams, followed the Democratic race's broader trend and -- like most young voters -- went with Sanders. 
 
 "Even though I don't agree with every one of his policies, he has his convictions, and I admire that, I respect that, and I think that's what swayed it for me is he has principle," Smith said. ||||| Trump takes 32-25 lead in New Hampshire after midnight voting 
 
 CLOSE The US presidential election gets underway -- on a small scale -- as seven people in a tiny New Hampshire village cast their ballots at the stroke of midnight. Video provided by AFP Newslook 
 
 As the world waits with bated breath for the results of Tuesday's contentious presidential election, its eyes turned briefly to three sleepy hamlets in rural New Hampshire, as their residents — fewer than 100 total — became the first in the nation to cast their ballots. 
 
 In Dixville Notch, Hillary Clinton beat Donald Trump 4-2. Libertarian Gary Johnson received one vote, and the 2012 Republican candidate, Mitt Romney received a surprise write-in ballot. In the slightly larger burg of Hart's Location, Clinton won with 17 votes to Trump's 14. Johnson got three votes, while write-ins Bernie Sanders and John Kasich each got one. And in Millsfield, Trump won decisively, 16-4, with one write-in for Bernie Sanders. 
 
 So, in the three New Hampshire towns with midnight voting, Trump came out ahead 32-25. 
 
 According to New Hampshire law, communities with under 100 voters can open their polls at midnight and close them as soon as all registered voters have cast their ballots. 
 
 The best known of these three towns, Dixville Notch, has been voting at midnight every election since 1960. Neil Tillotson, the former owner of the Balsams Grant Resort Hotel, which closed in 2011, started midnight voting in Dixville in 1960 to stir up publicity for the resort. Almost all of the Dixville voters are employees of the resort . 
 
 This could be Dixville's last year in the election spotlight, however. Les Otten, a New England businessman, bought the Balsams and plans to redevelop it into a massive ski resort. That could bring the population in Dixville over 100 people, thereby ending its midnight voting tradition. 
 
 Hart's Location was the first town to begin the tradition of early voting in 1948. According to the town's website, it started when the town was "inhabited mostly by Maine Central Railroad workers and their families" and early voting became the most convenient way for them to vote. But midnight voting was abandoned in 1964, "when residents became tired of all the media ruckus and voted to end it." 
 
 Hart's Location revived the practice in 1996. The town website blames the 32-year lull in midnight voting as the reason Dixville Notch gets all the attention, even though Dixville began the practice more than a decade later than Hart's Location. 
 
 Millsfield, located just over 12 miles down the road from Dixville Notch, is the newest town to get in on the act. Millsfield began midnight voting as early as 1952 (no one seems certain exactly when) and stopped the practice in the 1960s (again, no one seems certain exactly when). The town was invited to take the tradition back up last year by New Hampshire's secretary of State, in honor of the 100th anniversary of the New Hampshire primary. 
 
 CLOSE When each state in America closes their polling, times converted to Eastern. By Janet Loehrke and Ramon Padilla, USA TODAY. USA TODAY 
 
 “It’s important for us to revisit history that has been forgotten by most people,” Wayne Urso, the Millsfield election official who is spearheading the midnight vote told Medill News Service. 
 
 Don't read too much into the results from these towns. They lean conservative and tend to vote Republican, and obviously represent an extremely small sample. Dixville voted for the Republican in every election since 1960 — including Barry Goldwater who lost in a landslide to Lyndon Johnson — until going for Obama in 2008, and splitting the vote between Romney and Obama in 2012. 
 
 Since reviving midnight voting, Hart's Location voted for Dole in 1996, Bush in 2000 and 2004, and, like Dixville, broke with tradition to vote for Obama in 2008 and 2012. 
 
 Dixville had a better track record in the GOP primary and predicted every Republican nominee since 1968 (counting ties in 1980 and 2012), but that streak came to a crashing halt when John Kasich edged out the future nominee, Donald Trump 3-2. 
 
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– Visiting Dixville Notch has paid off for John Kasich: The Ohio governor has prevailed in the northern New Hampshire village that casts the first ballots of the country's first primary, the AP reports. The Ohio governor, the only candidate to make it to the village, had 3 votes to Donald Trump's 2, while all four Dixville Notch Democrats voted for Bernie Sanders. Two other nearby towns also vote at midnight and release results immediately. In Millsfield, CNN reports that Ted Cruz beat Trump 9-3, with a few other GOP candidates getting 1 vote apiece, while Clinton beat Sanders 2-1. In Hart's Location, Sanders beat Clinton 12-7 and Kasich had 5 votes to Trump's 4, with four other GOP candidates splitting the other five votes.