Higher turnout could have turned many races
| • | Special report: The Vanishing Voter |
This is the tenth in an occasional series of stories exploring Hawai'i's poor voter turnout and solutions for change.
By Jan TenBruggencate
Advertiser Staff Writer
Voters say they want change, and candidates say they represent change, but a demand for change did not show up Saturday at the ballot box.
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Candidate Ed Case, who lost the Democratic governor's nomination by just 2,600 votes out of 189,000 votes cast in that party's primary, may be the poster child for the effects of voter apathy.
"My feeling is that low voter turnout hurt me," Case said.
Not only him. Several race results had differences of fewer than 1,000 votes and could have changed with higher turnouts.
• To vote in an election, you need to send in a voter registration affidavit, found in the Verizon yellow pages (and on O'ahu in the 2002 Paradise Pages), to the appropriate city or county clerk's office. Tear it out or make a copy. • Forms are kept at all city and county clerk's offices, U.S. post offices, public libraries and many state offices. A copy is also in the state of Hawai'i tax booklet. Prospective voters can also register when they apply for, or renew, their driver's licenses. The form can be downloaded from the state Office of Elections Web page. • The voter registration deadline is Oct. 7 for the general election.
The Republican U.S. House first district seat was decided by fewer than 800 votes. The Democratic 23rd District state House race by fewer than 400 votes. On Kaua'i, the spread was 88 votes between the last candidate who will move on to the general election and the next candidate who won't.
Register to vote
Case was the Democratic governor candidate most aggressively calling for change. He gave voice to the case for cutting out patronage, streamlining government and having less government interference in the economy.
People sick of government would flock to the message, you might think.
"The level of desire for change is great. I was out there, outside the beltway, talking to people in their homes. The level of cynicism (about) government is great. The level of exclusion from government is great," he said.
On the one hand, people who really want change should go to the polls and vote for it. On the other, "once you feel excluded, you might just decide not to bother," he said.
The winner in his race, Lt. Gov. Mazie Hirono, said she was surprised by the low turnout.
"I don't know what caused it. It's really disappointing. Some races are so close," she said.
She suggested that quick fixes are not going to bring people back to the polls. Hirono is a supporter of the Kids Voting program, which teaches pre-voting age students about civics issues and allows them to cast ballots on Election Day for candidates who are actually running for office. The special kids election has no legal force, but Kids Voting USA officials say its results generally follow the results of the adult elections.
• Oct. 7: Last day to register to vote in general election • Oct. 22: Walk-in absentee polling places open for general election through Nov. 2 • Oct. 29: Last day to request absentee mail-in ballots for general election • Nov. 5: General election
"We should support programs like Kids Voting, to break the cycle of non-voting," she said.
Important dates
Hirono said low voter turnout may or may not help or damage specific candidates, but she believes it clearly hurts democracy.
"Lower voter turnout hurts the democratic process," she said.
Former Honolulu City Councilman Mufi Hannemann, who is leading a voter registration drive he calls Vote Hawai'i 2002, said pre-election polls that suggested winners were sure things in the primary may have cut turnout.
"The message is, 'The race is won already,' or 'My guy doesn't have a chance.' In either case, people don't bother voting," Hannemann said.
He hoped for better turnout in the Nov. 5 general election, saying high turnouts among those who voted early are a hopeful sign.
Absentee voting — either by mail or at early voting walk-in polling places — rose by nearly half, from 49,192 in the 2000 primary to 69,544 on Saturday.
Hannemann said many voters at the polls on Saturday complained about long waits and about not having been received notice that their polling places were changed.
"That's the beauty of early voting. I did it for the first time, and I was done in five minutes," he said. Furthermore, because ballots for all precincts are available at early voting sites, there is no problem with going to the wrong polling place, Hannemann said.
Case said the low voter percentage may be somewhat misleading, because federal law now requires people be kept on the registered voter rolls until they've missed four consecutive elections. In the past, not-voters were purged from the list after missing two elections.
Case estimates the federal law has inflated voter lists by as much as 100,000 names, many of which represent people who have died or moved away.
However, remove 100,000 voters from the registered voter list, and the voter turnout only increases from 41 percent to 48 percent — still lower than any turnout in Hawai'i history for a year in which the governor's office was up for election.
Reach Jan TenBruggencate at jant@honoluluadvertiser.com or (808)245-3074.
