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The Honolulu Advertiser

Updated at 11:05 a.m., Friday, September 29, 2006

Kaua'i candidates to challenge mayor's race results

By Jan TenBruggencate
Advertiser Staff Writer

LIHU'E, Kaua`i—Mayoral candidate Jesse Fukushima announced this morning that he has decided not to challenge the Primary Election vote count, but two other candidates in the race say they will.

Fukushima said he learned that the only way to appeal is through a Hawai'i Supreme Court filing, and he did not want to become involved in a complex legal process.

Fukushima was the second-place finisher in the Kaua`i mayor's race, in which Mayor Bryan Baptiste was the outright winner due to having received a majority of votes cast. If Baptiste had received just two fewer votes, the race would have gone to a runoff between him and Fukushima in the General Election.

Two candidates who have little reasonable chance of staying in the race, third-place candidate John Hoff and fifth-place candidate Janee Marie Taylor, both said yesterday that they hope to file election challenges with the Supreme Court by the 4:30 p.m. deadline today.

"I'm doing it to preserve the dignity of our system," said Hoff, who believes an audit of paper ballots could result in a change in the outcome of the election.

Taylor said she believes "doubt and suspicion" arose from the election, and that she will base her appeal on the state's Aloha Spirit law, which says government officials may consider the Aloha Spirit when performing their duties.

Reach Jan TenBruggencate at jant@honoluluadvertiser.com.