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| - Four major US states announced Friday that they would go ahead with Democratic presidential primaries next week despite the coronavirus crisis, after Louisiana became the first to postpone its contest. Officials from key electoral prizes Florida, Ohio, Illinois and Arizona said they believed they could create safe conditions for millions of Democratic voters expected to choose next Tuesday between former vice president Joe Biden and Senator Bernie Sanders to become the party's nominee. "We are working closely with our state health officials to ensure that our poll workers and voters can be confident that voting is safe," they said in a joint statement. "Unlike concerts, sporting events or other mass gatherings where large groups of people travel long distances to congregate in a confined space for an extended period of time, polling locations see people from a nearby community coming into and out of the building for a short duration," they said. They also said they were focused on keeping voting machines sanitized amid fears that the machines, touched by scores of voters, could play a part in the transmission of the COVID-19 virus. Their announcement came amid fears that the coronavirus pandemic could wreak havoc on the Democrats' choosing a candidate to challenge President Donald Trump in the November election. Earlier Friday Louisiana Secretary of State Kyle Ardoin, declared an official disaster and announced an 11 week postponement of the state's Democratic and Republican primaries, originally planned for April 4. "The law provides for extraordinary measures to be taken when facing disasters," Ardoin said. Many states and cities, including in Ohio and Illinois, have clamped down on large gatherings and closed schools which are often used as polling places to help stem the spread of the virus. Confirmed coronavirus cases in the US topped 1,700 on Friday, with 41 deaths, according to figures from Johns Hopkins University and the Centers for Disease Control. The Louisiana postponement came as the Democratic race is less than halfway through, with only 25 of 57 contests completed so far. Biden leads the race with 878 delegates over Sanders' 725. To win the nomination, a candidate needs a majority of 1,991. Both candidates have curtailed campaigning, cancelling rallies in Ohio, Illinois and elsewhere, and telling staffers to work from home. Biden, who is reliant on the older demographic that is more at risk from the outbreak, is holding online events and has urged voters to look for alternative ways to cast their ballot. "If voters are feeling healthy, not exhibiting symptoms, and don't believe they've been exposed to COVID-19, please vote on Tuesday," deputy campaign manager and communications director Kate Bedingfield said in a statement. "If voters are members of an at-risk population, exhibiting symptoms, or have been exposed to a diagnosed case of COVID-19, we encourage them to explore absentee ballots and vote by mail options." Sanders sounded more supportive for postponing primaries, without explicitly calling for a delay, voicing fear that many people would not be able to vote as they are obliged to care for children because of school closures. "All I would say is I think that the governors and the officials in the states that have elections scheduled for Tuesday have to balance things," Sanders said. Officials must "make sure that everybody who wants to vote has the right to vote, and that may not be the case today," he said. "I don't think there is anybody out there, no matter what your political view may be, who wants to see people become infected because they are voting." pmh/jh
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