Many voters of City Council District 5 are angry. They have a right to be. In last week's general election they were deprived of having any real voice in who fills the seat Ann Kobayashi vacated at the last minute to run for mayor.

In the ensuing confusion, Duke Bainum — former council member and one-time mayoral candidate — ran and was elected unopposed.

Technically, everyone followed the rules, but voters still felt disenfranchised, and were urged in a grass-roots campaign to cast a ballot that was left blank for that race.

The result was a vigorous protest: About 42.6 percent of the ballots in District 5 were cast without a mark by Bainum's name.

It was a strong message that Bainum should heed: He has some fence mending to do. District 5 expects its councilman to connect with the voters and earn their support, something Bainum didn't need to do to get elected. He needs to do it now.

And the state needs to focus on reforming the electoral process to ensure that voters have a chance for real choices on the ballot.

Various bills in draft form are already awaiting introduction once the Legislature convenes in January.

Each attempts to head off a repeat of the confusion over Kobayashi's vacated seat, and the domino effect that ensued when former state Rep. Kirk Caldwell vacated his House seat to run for council only to be disqualified.

There are variations on two basic ideas, both of which deserve a full hearing:

• Candidates should not be able to pull nomination papers at the 11th hour. Application availability would end a few days before the deadline. One bill proposes making papers unavailable 72 hours in advance of the filing deadline.

• If a candidate withdraws less than five days before the filing deadline, that deadline would be extended for five days following the withdrawal. This would mean that the filing deadline would need to be moved up, to allow for possible extensions, so that enough time would remain for printing the ballots.

But that adjustment is well justified if it means Hawai'i voters will be spared a repeat of the last-minute shenanigans in Council District 5.

Then voters can have a real choice.