It was not a good week for Hawai'i politics. There was last-minute scrambling for sudden vacancies on the City Council and in the House.

The resulting confusion makes clear that the electoral process needs reform. The current rules favor incumbents and insiders and too often leave voters with poor choices, or none at all.

In this case, there could have been conspiring to ensure that only hand-picked candidates got the word about the last-minute openings.

Even if that's impossible to prove, the most charitable conclusion is that the 2008 campaign season has opened like an episode of Keystone Cops — except not so funny.

Ann Kobayashi decides, on the deadline day for filing, to vacate her council seat and run for mayor, now a three-way race that also involves incumbent Mufi Hannemann and political newcomer Panos Prevedouros.

Kobayashi insists nobody knew her decision until she made it that morning. A handful of people, some of whom had been discussing election prospects with Kobayashi in recent months, were contacted or otherwise found out.

The result: A chaotic race to contend for her open seat, a paper chase still under review by the Office of the City Clerk.

Among those in the know who filed for the seat that day: Duke Bainum, who left Hawai'i after losing against Hannemann in 2004; and state Rep. Kirk Caldwell. A scurry for Caldwell's now-vacated seat added to the confusion.

Some degree of machination is always part of the political process. Nobody wants to mount an expensive campaign against an incumbent, so potential candidates are always on the alert for an open seat.

But this level of shenanigans will only reinforce the general disillusionment among voters already convinced that the state election system is inaccessible and dysfunctional.

As evidence: 278 people are running this year, down from 324 in 2006, 410 in 2002. Of this year's 112 races, 31 have just one candidate.

Ramping up civic engagement is a long-term job, but there are incremental fixes: