Brian Schatz wins Senate primary after Puna, Maui vote

Posted: Aug 15, 2014 8:25 AM PDTUpdated: Aug 16, 2014 9:03 AM PDT

Brian Schatz (on right)



PUNA, BIG ISLAND (HawaiiNewsNow) -Incumbent U.S. Senator Brian Schatz has narrowly won Hawaii's Democratic U.S. Senate primary.

After two special election printouts which included 800 ballots from Maui, Schatz finished with 115,401 votes to Hanabusa's 113,632.


Friday's special election was scheduled after Tropical Storm Iselle forced the closure of two Puna precincts on election day last week, while the rest of the state voted.


Out of the 6,782 registered Puna voters who could have voted today a little more than 1,500 actually went to the polls.


Hanabusa trailed Schatz by 1,635 going into Friday's special election.

She filed for an emergency temporary restraining order Wednesday morning, asking a state court to delay the make-up election, saying voters in the area needed more time to recover from the storm. Hilo Circuit Judge Greg Nakamura rejected her request on Thursday.


Earlier Friday evening, approximately 800 uncounted mail-in ballots from Maui were discovered. Scott Nago, the state's chief elections officer, says the missing ballots were discovered during an election audit.


Schatz will now face Republican Cam Cavasso in the General Election.

Puna residents are still dealing with power outages, as of Friday afternoon, about 3,800 customers were still without electricity.

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