Politics

Biden wins Democratic primaries in Hawaii

Washington DC, May 23 (efe-epa).- Former United States Vice President Joe Biden won Hawaii’s Democratic presidential primary on Saturday.

The Democratic Party had canceled in-person voting for the primary, which was originally scheduled to be held on Apr. 4, and conducted the process by a vote-by-mail system due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Interim Democratic Party Chair Kate Stanley told media that Biden – who is the presumptive Democratic nominee for the upcoming presidential elections in November – secured 63 percent of the votes while Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, the progressive candidate who quit the Democratic nomination race and is now backing his rival, obtained 37 percent.

Following the change in the voting system on account of the lockdown measures imposed to contain the spread of the coronavirus, more than 79,000 ballots were sent and around 35,000 were returned by mail.

The deadline for returning the mail-ballot was Friday, the Democratic party had said in a statement late March confirming the cancellation of on-site voting.

“Third round ballots should arrive in homes on or about May 2, 2020. The mail-ballot return deadline is May 22, 2020. Results will be tabulated and released on May 23, 2020,” the party had said.

Biden, who is almost certain to become the Democratic nominee for president, was embroiled in a controversy on Friday after he suggested that African-Americans who consider voting for the current president Donald Trump over him in the November elections “ain’t black.”

Biden, who was Barack Obama’s vice-president between 2009 and 2017, made this comment during an interview on “The Breakfast Club” morning radio show, which is popular in the black community and hosted by Charlamagne tha God.

Biden apologized for his comment hours later when the controversy had already erupted saying that he “shouldn’t have been so cavalier.”

“I know the comments have come off like I was taking the African vote for granted. But nothing could be further from the truth,” the former vice-president said during a phone call with the US Black Chamber of Commerce on Friday afternoon.

Meanwhile, Trump’s campaign accused Biden of being “racist.”

“Joe Biden declaring who is and isn’t black is the height of elitist Democrat arrogance,” Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale said. EFE-EPA

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