On Aug. 9 Hawaii held its primary election, but two precincts in Hawaii County (the Big Island) were unable to vote due to damage from Tropical Storm Iselle. An estimated 8,255 voters are in those two precincts, and appointed Sen. Brian Schatz currently holds a 1,635 vote lead over his Democratic primary rival, Rep. Colleen Hanabusa. You can
check out our rundown of where things stand and what may happen next here.
Polls will be open in both precincts Friday until 6 PM local time (12 AM ET) and results are due shortly afterward. We'll be bringing you the results as they come in, as well as any further developments in the race throughout the weekend.
Results: AP | Board of Elections
9:05 PM PT: Polls have just closed in both precincts. And here's an extra dose of drama: 800 uncounted votes have been discovered in Maui. Because of an error, the votes were not counted. They'll be added to the statewide total tonight.
9:23 PM PT: Via the Star-Advertiser, we know that 1,508 votes were cast today in the Puna precincts, and 1,448 early votes were cast. If you factor in the 800 Maui ballots, Hanabusa would need to win everything by about 72-28. Of course, not all these ballots were cast in the Democratic primary, so that makes her math all the more difficult.
9:29 PM PT: Based on the Star-Advertiser's numbers, it looks like turnout in both Puna precincts was 36 percent, a little less than the statewide average. Despite some speculation that we'd see massive turnout given how close things were without these two precincts, it doesn't look like that's happened at all. Of course, given that many areas in Puna are still recovering from the storm, that's not a surprise.
10:05 PM PT: The first results are expected at 7:30 PM local time (1:30 AM ET). It's unclear how many waves of results (known as printouts) there will be, but the Maui votes are expected to be in the first batch. The good news is we know how many extra votes to look for: All in all about 3,756 extra votes will be added to the statewide tally, though not all of these votes were cast in the Democratic primary.
10:32 PM PT: May take a little while longer:
The memory cards have made it to Hilo from Puna. As soon as they're transmitted to Honolulu, it'll be 15-20 minutes for a printout. #hivote
— @treenashapiro
We should see numbers around 1:45-1:50 AM ET.
10:40 PM PT: Ok then...
Elections officials say a printout should be available by 8 p.m. #HIVote
— @starpolitics
11:06 PM PT:
U.S. Sen. Brian Schatz holds on to lead over U.S. Rep. Colleen Hanabusa in their Democratic primary for U.S. Senate. #HIVote
— @starpolitics
We're working on finding out how many votes are counted and are left.
11:09 PM PT: It looks like about 3,080 votes were counted, which should be about all of them. Schatz expands his lead to 1,769 votes, up 134 votes.
11:12 PM PT: Local news stations are calling this for Schatz as expected. We're waiting to see what Hanabusa does tonight.
11:18 PM PT: There won't be any second printout, at least with any meaningful number of votes included. Essentially all the votes are in, and we're waiting to see what Hanabusa does. Hawaii has no automatic recount, but she may have a few legal options.
11:21 PM PT: Hanabusa has stated she has not yet decided whether to challenge the results. It looks close to impossible to imagine this ending in anything other than a Schatz win in the end.
11:26 PM PT: That's it for tonight. Over the weekend we'll post any more developments in this liveblog. We'll be looking at whether Hanabusa concedes or whether she attempts to challenge the results. Either way, it looks like a certainty that Schatz will be the Democratic nominee and will easily win in November. Have a good night and aloha!