HILO, Hawai'i — Candidates for the nine Big Island County Council seats will be able to use public money to finance their campaigns in 2010 in the first Hawai'i test of fully publicly funded elections.

Gov. Linda Lingle allowed the deadline to pass Monday night for notifying state lawmakers that she will veto the publicly funded election bill, a sure sign the governor will either sign the measure or allow it to become law without her signature.

Advocates tried for a decade without success to get state lawmakers to pass a law creating publicly funded elections in Hawai'i, but it was a group of grassroots activists and students on the Big Island who launched the idea of trying out public funding on a trial basis in the county council races here.

The council voted 7-1 in January to back a county pilot project for the 2010, 2012 and 2014 elections, and state lawmakers agreed.

Big Island County Councilman Bob Jacobson, who introduced the council resolution in support of the project, said advancing public election financing may be one of his most significant contributions during his three terms on the council because it could trigger "profound change" in county government.

Jacobson predicted public funding will attract more qualified candidates who declined to run in the past because they couldn't afford to. "It could very well change politics in this county forever," he said.

Public funding advocates such as Kory Payne, community organizer for Voter Owned Hawai'i, predict public funding will boost voter participation and increase the number of people who run for public office.

The program would be optional for Big Island council candidates in 2010, 2012 and 2014, the three election cycles when public financing will be tested out. Candidates who do not want to participate will be allowed to raise and spend money under existing campaign spending law.

Each candidate who wants full public funding would need to collect a signature and a $5 donation from 200 registered voters in the council district where that candidate is running.

Candidates who manage that would qualify for funding from the state amounting to 90 percent of the average amount spent by the winners in the previous two council races in that district. That is expected to work out to roughly $20,000 for each qualifying candidate on the Big Island, although the exact amounts would vary from one district to the next.

Publicly funded candidates would only be allowed to use public funds in their races.

The pilot project approved by the Legislature budgets $300,000 for each of the three two-year election cycles to pay for the program. The money to finance the Big Island pilot project would come from the Hawai'i Election Campaign Fund, which is financed with voluntary contributions by taxpayers.

Barbara Wong, executive director of the state Campaign Spending Commission, argued against the test project at the Legislature, calling full public funding of elections "financially imprudent."

Wong estimated that comparable statewide public financing for Hawai'i elections in a gubernatorial election year could cost $30 million or more, and has argued there is no reason to test out the concept at the county level when it is obviously unaffordable at the state level.