96 New Voting Machines Worked Well

Every Sunday, “Back in the Day” looks at an article that ran on this date in the Honolulu Star-Bulletin. The items are verbatim, so don’t blame us today for yesteryear’s bad grammar.

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Hawaii’s 96 new, electrical operated voting machines passed their first test with flying colors in Saturday’s primary election.

Owen K. Konishi, State elections field officer, reported there were no failures or complaints over the new machines, used for the first time in three Oahu representative districts.

Final figures for the close to 17,000 voters were compiled in from 45 minutes to 11⁄2 hours. Konishi said time would be cut by another half-hour when operators became more familiar with the new voting machines.

In previous elections it had taken as long as seven hours to tabulate a similar number of votes.

The new $1,500 Seiscor machines were used in the 15th, 10th and Eighth Representative Districts. Konishi said they would be used in the same Districts in 11 precincts during the general election in November.

Forty-two older automatic machines used in heavily-populated voting areas on Oahu in previous elections were sent to the Big Island, Maui, and Kauai this year.

Konishi also said that voters were pleased with the voting machines, and voters without the machines wanted to know when they would be available in their precincts.

Money for the voting machines has to be appropriated by the State Legislature.

Konishi said the only problem encountered with the voting machines was when a voter changed his mind about the party from which he wished to select candidates, and had to come out and tell the precinct worker to push a button to change the side on which he could vote.

One voter came out and said he could not find the name of the candidate for President of the United States he wanted to vote for.

Konishi said if there had been a power failure and the voting machines could not operate, paper ballots would have been available for voters.