Without presidential race, primary votes could lag

If you insist on walking into an actual polling booth for this primary election, Monday is your first chance, as that’s when absentee voting starts.

If you are a permanent absentee voter, your ballot should be on your kitchen table ready to fill out.

Along with ballots being mailed out, new voter registration numbers were released this week.

As always, the numbers are up a tad, this time slightly more than 1 percent.

The political side of the equation is broken down a little bit better because there is a new figure added to the official registration tally. This year, voter officials gave two numbers for the number of registered voters, both active and fail-safe.

Active voters are the ones who got a correctly addressed yellow card from the state Office of Elections. The fail-safe number includes the cards mailed to registered voters but returned because the person doesn’t live there anymore.

Officials keep the deadwood voters on the voter rolls for two election cycles and then they are scrubbed. Some of the fail-safe registered voters show up and vote, according to Honolulu clerk’s office official Glen Takahashi, but most are gone.

So while the total registered voter number for Hawaii is 697,033, the one to use to figure out who’ll have a say in who wins on Aug. 9 is "active voters," which is 609,472.

So the question is, who is likely to vote?

Last election was a presidential election year, so the figures aren’t comparable to this cycle, so let’s look at the 2010 election.

The best turnout then was on Oahu with 45.1 percent. The worst turnout was on Maui, which had just 34.2 percent at the polls.

The statewide turnout figure in the primary was 42.8 percent. Elections officials don’t compare national primary election numbers because the states have different ways of running their primary elections, but it can be assumed that 42.8 percent is not a brag-worthy number.

Back in 2010, Neil Abercrombie won the gubernatorial primary with 142,000 votes, or nearly 60 percent, compared to Mufi Hannemann, who had just under 38 percent.

To win this year, look at the base number of "active voters" — it is 609,810.

The candidates are figuring the percentage of voters to be similar to 2010, so 42.8 percent or 260,854 should be how many votes will be cast.

The winning number of votes, then, is probably around 130,500 votes or more to take either the Democratic gubernatorial nomination or the Democratic U.S. Senate primary.

What is troubling is that not many people in Hawaii are likely to vote.

Back in 2010 primary, the state saw 293,016 go to the polls. That is not a big deal, because back in 1994 a total of 309,700 voted in the primary. We also had nearly that many in 1986 and in 1978, when the primary turnout was 70 percent.

City officials are offering only two walk-in absentee voting sites this year: Hono-lulu Hale on South King Street and Kapolei Hale at 1000 Uluohia St. Voting hours at both sites are 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday to Saturday, through Aug. 7.

Richard Borreca writes on politics on Sundays, Tuesdays and Fridays. Reach him at rborreca@staradvertiser.com.