State takeover of Big Isle voting is short-term fix

The primary election fias-co in Hawaii County, in which 13 voting precincts opened late, has led to much hand-wringing, recriminations and opprobrium from Honolulu to Hilo. With the general election less than five weeks from now, there’s little time remaining to get the island’s election processes squared away.

So it makes sense that the state Office of Elections would act to take control of the county’s polling places, the control center and counting center to prevent a repeat of the breakdown of procedures that caused a statewide delay in the release of initial results of the Aug. 11 primaries.

Hawaii County Clerk Jamae Kawauchi, who was responsible for managing the ill-fated primary, admits that it was a disaster. She needed "help in the face of humiliation" to overcome problems linked to her "incredibly independent" and "very direct" management style.

She had no election experience when County Council Chairman Dominic Yagong appointed her to the county clerk job in December 2010.

Kawauchi, a 39-year-old lawyer, attended one of the state’s election workshops last week with the full intention of correcting her mistakes and running a smooth general election. However, Scott Nago, the state’s chief elections officer, closed that option, at least for this election.

He told reporters Tuesday that he did not believe Kawauchi’s plans for the general election adequately address three main problems in the primary: operation of the control center, packing of election materials into precinct cans and programming cellphones issued to precinct workers to communicate with election officials.

"This is not how it was done ever before," he said.

Also unprecedented is the state elections office taking control of a neighbor island’s elections operation. While the state office supervises all state elections, the state has delegated to the counties control over county elections, along with voter registration and absentee ballots.

On Oahu, the state elections office oversees operations. Nonetheless, the state has the authority to push Kawauchi aside.

"We don’t have a hammer to enforce her, to make sure she does her job," Nago said. "The only thing we could do is take back our delegation, which is what we did."

He has assigned Lori Tomczyk, leader of the state’s ballot operations section, to administer the November election in Hilo, along with a temporary staff. Tomczyk monitored this year’s primary election in Hawaii County.

While the state’s action is warranted, it’s not ideal. There are no assurances that similar aggravations will not recur in future elections. County clerks should be required by neighbor island county councils to undergo thorough instruction by the state elections office on how to exercise proper control of elections, which is their responsibility.

Also, the state elections office needs to implement better controls to ensure that potential problems are flagged and resolved well before election day.

Hawaii’s appallingly low voter turnout is bad enough. Avoidable election snafus should not be allowed to make this problem worse.