Voters in the final two US states of the primary season were going to the polls today as Barack Obama prepared to become the first black presidential nominee of a major US party.

Democratic party chiefs have agreed on a compromise to seat Michigan and Florida delegates with half-votes after Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton failed to get enough support to force their positions through.

Democratic presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton and Republican candidate John McCain were “reading from the same political playbook” and their proposed summer fuel tax holiday was simply “pandering to voters”, Barack Obama said today.

Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton said she ‘‘did not have any involvement’’ in the pardons her husband granted on his way out of the White House and expressed dismay that her brother was paid lavishly to lobby for the relief of two men.