Washington: The New Hampshire primary of the 2020 US presidential election began on Tuesday, with the first group of voters casting ballots in several small towns in the state.
In Dixville Notch, a northern New Hampshire town close to the Canadian border, all of its five voters showed up at a polling station, reports Xinhua news agency.
Hart’s Location and Millsfield are two other midnight voting places in New Hampshire, traditionally the first US state to vote in the primary election, while other polling locations will open later on Tuesday.
“Midnight voting in New Hampshire, along with New Hampshire’s first-in-the-nation status, basically becomes the starting gun for the race,” Tom Tillotson, Dixville Notch’s election moderator, told Xinhua.
Ahead of the voting, President Donald Trump held a rally in Manchester on Monday evening.
Most Democratic presidential contenders are also in the Granite State to make a final push to appeal to voters.
The primary comes a week after the Iowa caucuses on February 3, where former South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg won 14 of the state’s 41 delegates.
According to the recount announced on Sunday by the state Democratic party, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders garnered the second highest number of delegates – 12 – followed by Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren with eight, former Vice President Joe Biden with six and Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar with one.
The primary process is a mathematical process with the Democratic – and Republican – presidential nominees being decided based on the number of delegates they can garner to back them at the party’s national convention, which formally designates the candidate.
In all, the Democratic National Committee calculates that there will be 3,979 delegates at the convention in Wisconsin in July, and thus the winning candidate will need 1,990 delegates – 50 per cent plus one – to secure the presidential nomination.
