In 2000, only 58.2 percent of the 637,379 registered voters took the time to vote.

Rex Quidilla, voter services coordinator for the Hawai'i Office of Elections, said yesterday's final total could top 60 percent of all voters.

Voter turnout in Hawai'i had declined every presidential election year since 1976 when 85.1 percent of the 363,045 registered voters made it to the polls.

Yesterday, a number of polling places stayed open late to accommodate long lines of last-minute voters, but Quidilla said voting went smoothly with few problems at polling sites.

Some voters may have been given the wrong ballots in House District 38 in the race between incumbant Democrat Marilyn Lee and Republican challenger Alonzo Sandoval, and voters who used electronic voting machines were not counted until the final readout, Quidilla said.

Electricity went out for about two hours at one polling location at Sunset Beach on O'ahu, he said, but no one was stopped from voting.

After all Honolulu results were believed to have been tallied, 4,000 absentee ballots arrived at the state Capitol late and had yet to be counted, putting final numbers in doubt.

Nearly 20 percent of the state's 647,238 registered voters — or 127,052 people — voted early, using absentee ballots. By 4 p.m. yesterday an estimated 36 percent of voters had been to their polling places, bringing total turnout at that point to 56 percent, according to Quidilla.

Waimanalo resident Dotsy Buffett, 42, voted for the first time because she wants to change the direction the country is headed.

"My main concern is who becomes the president," Buffett said. "The race is very important to me because of the war."

Aaron Johanson, the Hawai'i Republican Party's political director, said with the race between President George W. Bush and Sen. John Kerry so close, Hawai'i's four electoral votes could make a difference in who wins.

"This is the first time in recent memory for most people where we have actually gotten some attention on a national level," Johanson said. "That has energized people and increased enthusiasm in a way people haven't seen for awhile."