Hillary Clinton: First person in line at book signing is sorry he didn't vote in 2016

'She would have gotten the job done'

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton reacts at a signing of her new book 'What Happened' at Barnes & Noble bookstore at Union Square in Manhattan, New York (REUTERS)

Hillary Clinton's new book maybe a post-mortem of last year's failed presidential bid, but the first person in the queue to get it signed admitted he had not voted at all.

Brian Maisonet told The Guardian that he wished he had voted for the Democratic nominee, who ultimately lost out to Donald Trump.

"She would have gotten the job done," the 29-year-old said.

Ms Clinton writes that more than two dozen women have made the same admission to her. Some had apologised for not doing more to prevent the Republican leader's victory.

In What Happened, Ms Clinton said: "How could you not vote? You abdicated your responsibility as a citizen at the worst possible time! These people were looking for absolution that I just couldn’t give."

But Mr Maisonet said he did not want to vote for either candidate after watching a documentary about the finances of the Clinton Foundation - the multi-billion dollar international charitable organisation founded in 1997, originally to establish the Bill Clinton presidential library.

Ms Clinton won nearly three million more individual votes than her Mr Trump, but was doomed by the US' electoral college system.

Each state has a number of electors in the electoral college proportionate to its population - the sum of its number of senators (always two) and representatives in the House.

Technically, Americans on election day cast votes for electors, not the candidates themselves, although in most cases the electors' names are not on the ballot.

Mr Trump won in states that provided more delegates, gaining a final total of 306 to Ms Clinton's 232.

The former Secretary of State did not offer any public remarks as she signed copies of her book or several hundred supporters inside a New York bookshop.

But Trump spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders fired back from the White House briefing room when asked about the new book.

"I think it's sad that after Hillary Clinton ran one of the most negative campaigns in history and lost and the last chapter of her public life is going to be now defined by propping up book sales with false and reckless attacks," she said. "And I think that that's a sad way for her to continue."

The New York City crowd, however, greeted Ms Clinton with a massive cheer. Some waited in line for more than five hours to see her.

Additional reporting by agencies