Update!

Voting With the Stars

A-listers come out in droves to cast their votes in the presidential election

By Natalie Finn, Gina Serpe Nov 05, 2008 12:48 AMTags

Fair warning: Carrie Underwood may or may not approve this message.

While the masses head to the polls in record numbers today, a slew of celebs are putting their civic duty where their mouths—and MySpace rants and video blogs and slogan T-shirts—have been.

Coast to coast, the A-list waited out the long lines and the uncomfortable proximity to the hoi polloi to take one for democracy. After the jump, a rundown of who voted where and, more intriguingly, for whom.

AP Photo/Jason DeCrow

• The ever-indiscreet Diddy made no secret of which candidate he supports, taking the old adage that every vote counts to the extreme while hitting a booth in a midtown Manhattan school. "I felt like my vote was the vote that put him into office," Mr. Vote or Die said of Barack Obama. "It was down to one vote, and that was going to be my vote. And that may not be true, but that's how much power it felt like I had."

• Further downtown, Tim Robbins was battling just to cast a ballot. Despite having voted at the same location for years, the actor's name was not on the register. Robbins was miffed and claimed poll workers were trying to intimidate him into not voting; workers retaliated by threatening to call the cops. Instead, Robbins hightailed it to the City Board of Elections to prove his eligibility.

Angelina Jolie had no such trouble. The Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder Department received the globetrotting mommy's absentee ballot three days ago. She apparently requested her ballot in August, a few weeks after giving birth to twins Knox and Vivienne.

Britney Spears was assigned a friendly neighborhood polling place after switching her voter registration from Kentwood, La., where she was listed as a Republican, to L.A. County.

• The couple that votes together, stays together. Vocal Obama supporters Sarah Jessica Parker and Matthew Broderick also cast their votes in Manhattan this morning.

• Another case in point: Joined-at-the-hip Obamians Justin Timberlake and Jessica Biel were spotted at the polls in Los Angeles.

• Big Obama fan (although a McCain endorser for SNL monologue purposes) Ben Affleck was expected to show up at an L.A. polling spot at some point today, while his similarly inclined wife, Jennifer Garner—who's registered to vote as Jennifer Affleck—has done the deed by mail already.

Joel Madden also applied for a mail-in ballot using a name we're not as familiar with?his birth name, Joel Combs. We're not sure how the mother of his child, the also-registered Nicole Richie, was planning to get her vote across, though.

AP Photo/Matt Sayles

Pete Wentz happily flashed his "I Voted" sticker after casting a ballot for Obama in Beverly Hills, adding that "it's important for people to get out there." Ready-to-pop wife Ashlee Simpson-Wentz will be waddling to the polls later today.

Hayden Panettiere did her best to make one candidate a hero, casting her vote with a friend at a West Hollywood polling station.

High School Musical 3 hunk Zac Efron, meanwhile, has no use for polling places. The tween fave is registered as a permanent vote-by-mail kinda guy.

• Count Kate Hudson and Drew Barrymore among those with postal fever, as well. The actress' mail-in ballots were received by the L.A. County registrar by Nov. 1 and Oct. 27, respectively.

Rachel Bilson (last month) and Jennifer Aniston (in September) were also among the celebs who requested mail-in ballots, but there's was no word of their status on the department's website.

Brandy informed reporters in New York Monday that she would be casting a vote for the Obama-Biden ticket in Los Angeles. "Our world is changing," she said. "It's changing right now, and I'm so happy to contribute to that."

• The Governator himself, Arnold Schwarzenegger, cast his vote for John McCain in Brentwood this morning.

Usher informed reporters that he would be casting his ballot for Obama. "We now recognize that we have a voice," he said of his fellow young voters.

Ryan Phillippe Baracked the vote in Los Angeles after waiting just 30 minutes in line. When asked which way he voted, the actor replied, "Who do you think? I spent the weekend in Missouri campaigning for [Obama]." He also said he voted no on California's Proposition 8, which seeks to ban same-sex marriage.

AP Photo/Wilfredo Lee

Cynthia Nixon, Marisa Tomei and George Lopez did their best to make sure no chad was left hung, turning up to rallies outside Obama's Miami Lakes, Fla., campaign office Monday, with Nixon making an appearance at a North Miami Beach polling station today.

Taylor Swift cast her ballot during an early voting period in Tennessee last week. Swift did not disclose which candidate she voted for, but said, "[I] went with my gut instinct. I wavered back and forth the entire time I was waiting in line."

Kirsten Dunst followed suit, filming herself voting early last week in California. The actress has been a public Obama supporter.

• Also voting early was T.I., who cast his first-ever ballot in early voting in suburban Atlanta last week.

• The bicontinental Gwyneth Paltrow announced in a video PSA released all the way back in August that she would be casting her vote via absentee ballot for Obama, and urged fellow ex-pats to do the same.

Orlando Bloom, meanwhile, released a video PSA in support of Obama just yesterday, though he will not be hitting the polls today—the British-born actor is not an American citizen.

Oprah Winfrey, no doubt with visions of Inauguration Day garments dancing in her head, announced on her talk show last week that she took advantage of Chicago's early voting procedure and cast her vote for Obama. She also plans to be at Obama's postelection party in the Windy City later tonight.

• Also among the bold-faced names who are registered to vote in L.A. County are Brad Pitt, Paris Hilton (who told David Letterman on Monday that she was planning to hit the polls), Jessica Alba, McCain enthusiasts Heidi Montag and Spencer Pratt, Jessica Simpson, Reese Witherspoon and Jake Gyllenhaal.