Hawaii voters need firing up to counter poor turnout

Despite Jamae Kawauchi’s assertion that Hawaii County is ready for the Nov. 6 vote and the county clerk’s assessment of herself as “pretty competent,” the state Office of Elections doesn’t seem to share the faith.

The elections office will take over poll operations on the Big Island for the general election, rescinding its delegation of authority to the county.

The extraordinary move comes as the election season turns to conflicts in some states where Republican-led legislatures, under the guise of curbing near-nonexistent voter fraud, have passed laws that tend to disenfranchise minority and low-income citizens who are more likely to cast ballots for Democratic candidates. You get the picture.

Hawaii has a different problem. The majority of its eligible voters don’t bother going to the polls, which caught the eye of CNN. The network has made Hawaii’s bottom rating on its nationwide voter turnout list its latest “To Do” project.

The network says its goal isn’t to shame its targets, though the situation is embarrassing nonetheless. CNN hopes its reporting and its attempts to explain island apathy will spur voters and move the state from the basement.

We wish them luck.

Hawaii officials can’t be pleased about the negative publicity. If the state is to counter its foremost fun-in-the-sun image and cultivate a long-desired secondary view that serious business can and does take place here, its last place in voter turnout doesn’t help.

A post on CNN’s blog highlights Hawaii County’s primary election fiasco when polls opened late due to miscommunications and delayed deliveries of polling materials.

The blog quotes a Hilo man’s letter to the Hawaii Tribune Herald in which he says he spent 11⁄2 hours trying to vote, and that the process was so difficult, he left.

“If this is a strategy to get people not to vote, it worked,” he said. “Sorry to say I probably won’t waste my time voting again.”

In the 1960s, nearly all of Hawaii’s registered voters made it to the polls, but numbers tumbled through the years, increasing from the 40 percent range only when home-grown Barack Obama was on the ballot, drawing about 66 percent of those registered.

Political science professors, retired or otherwise, have tried to explain voter indifference.

Opinions run from Democratic domination of contests, job-related hurdles, the handy fun-in-the-sun theory and laziness.

The state has tried to make voting easier with “Wikiwiki Voter Registration,” mail-in absentee ballots and early walk-in voting, but some effort is required, and slacker citizens will still consider the effort a tiresome chore.

Their choice, their loss. The cynics among us will say that one politician is like another and that voting is generally picking the lesser of evils.

Well, this year’s elections — from choosing a president and members of Congress to county mayors and councils — will undoubtedly have major consequences. Those who don’t invest in voting relinquish their stake in laws, decisions, powers and controls of leadership in government.

I hope that Hilo man will give it another go.

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Cynthia Oi can be reached at coi@staradvertiser.com.