KUALA LUMPUR:Malaysia wants the importance of foreign relations with Washington to be enhanced regardless of whether the new President of the United States is a Democrat or a Republican.

University of Malaya Senior Lecturer in International and Strategic Studies, Dr Roy Anthony Rogers said Democrats had a more open, constructive foreign policy and had a broad network as witnessed during the administration of former US President Barack Obama.

Meanwhile, Republicans, he said, are more conservative and of interest to the country in the issue of bilateral relations in the future.

"If Trump sits in the White House, will his more conservative policies continue, or if Biden becomes president, is he just like Obama before who wants to work with other countries?" he asked during a Skype conference on Wednesday.

Earlier, several states in the US reported technical problems when millions of people began casting their ballots and fulfilling their responsibilities in the 2020 U.S. elections.

Meanwhile, Dr Roy Anthony said the use of social media by both candidates is not a determinant of the election results.

"Indeed, social media is used by both parties to garner support.

"However, this is not the final determinant because some will swing to one of the candidates in the last period.

"We can see that the 2020 election is a competition involving the mass media actively and both parties, including Democrats, use the mass media as much as possible to increase the popularity of their candidates," he said.

He explained, based on the electoral vote, among the states that can be decisive are Texas and Florida because of its large demographic compared to other states.

Voters in the US will determine whether Trump or Biden get the most votes in the ongoing election.

However, the maximum number of votes or popular votes does not determine a candidate wins the presidency.

Instead, the candidate for the post will be determined by how many electoral votes he wins.