Number of invalid votes up
By Gordon Y.K. Pang
Advertiser Capitol Bureau
Elections officials have not yet determined why there were nearly 10,000 spoiled ballots cast in Saturday's primary election — nearly triple the invalid votes in the 2002 primary.
They found troubling the high number of voters who had their partisan-race choices negated because they chose from more than one political party.
"We have to assess whether our voter-education efforts and training are sufficient, as well as all the other collateral education material and aids we provide," said Rex Quidilla, voter services coordinator for the state Office of Elections.
While the spoiled ballots were not counted for partisan races, their votes were counted for the special election races on the opposite side of the ballot — including the mayor, prosecutor, City Council and Board of Education seats, Quidilla said.
Critics say the ballots did not instruct voters to choose from only one party; the only reference was on the bottom stub portion, which said "vote within one ballot only."
Quidilla said the language on the ballots was the same as in previous years.
After invalid votes climbed to 3.7 percent in 2000, the state implemented new measures, Quidilla said, and the number of invalidated votes fell to 1.3 percent in the 2002 primary.
Elections officials are at a loss to explain why invalidated votes increased again.
A total of 9,883 votes, about 3.8 percent of all votes cast, were invalidated because boxes were filled in for more than one party. In 2002 there were 3,517 votes, or about 1.3 percent, nullified. That was a drop from the 9,342 invalidated votes in 2000 (3.7 percent) and 8,017 spoiled votes in 1998 (2.75 percent), the first year the state used the optical-scan voting system.
"We've done exactly the same things we did to reduce the number (of invalidated votes) in previous years, specifically 2002," Quidilla said. "We provide instructions in the yellow (precinct notification) cards; instructions are in the brochures that go to voter households; we train our precinct officials the same way we've done in previous years. We also put signage in the polling places to instruct voters on how to vote in the single primary election — all those things that were effective in 2002."
One contributing factor may have been that all 353 precincts got new chairpeople this year, Quidilla said. State law requires that precinct chairpersons be of the same party as the governor, who is a Republican this election for the first time in 40 years.
"Chairs that have experience ... have gone through it before and know that this may be an area where they have questions," Quidilla said.
Completed paper ballots are fed by the voter into a machine.
If a multi-party ballot is detected, the machine stops; an election worker informs the voter a spoiled ballot has been cast and asks if the voter wants to mark a new ballot, Quidilla said. He said a number of people apparently chose not to try again.
According to the election results, 4,000 spoiled ballots were cast at the voting booth, while 5,559 were mailed in. Absentee voters who mail their ballots do not have a chance to revote.
Todd Belt, a University of Hawai'i-Hilo political science professor who served as an elections observer, said spoiled absentee ballots increased by 7 percent, while invalidated election day ballots increased by 2.5 percent.
That negates the theory that the bulk of spoiled ballots came from increased absentee voting, Belt said. Some 31.9 percent of voters cast absentee ballots, up from a record 25.3 percent in the 2002 primary.
Belt said better education and labeling is needed. "I just don't think we had three times as many stupid people voting this time," he said.
Others agreed.
Local public relations executive Doug Carlson said no one was monitoring when the voter in front of him on Saturday triggered a beeping sound at the verifying machine. "When I pointed out the problem, the (elections) worker ran outside and stopped the woman, who presumably revoted," Carlson said in an e-mail.
Jean Aoki, an elections observer and legislative chairwoman for the League of Women Voters, said the problem can be corrected. "We need to make the instructions clearer, and, second, we really need more voter education," Aoki said.
Elwin Spray, chief elections observer for the state, suggested that more candidates from different parties may simply have been appealing this year.
His theory was echoed by Gov. Lingle, who said she believes the increase in spoiled ballots may be a sign that more voters in historically Democratic Hawai'i are considering candidates from different parties.
Reach Gordon Y.K. Pang at gpang@honoluluadvertiser.com or at 525-8070.
