State’s unusual congressional election confuses voters
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Al Coleman, an IT professional who lives in Waikiki, talks outside an early voting location in Honolulu, Hawaii.
The death of one of Hawaii’s congressmen has led to an unusual ballot and voter confusion in urban Honolulu.
The rare double election means residents in the 1st Congressional District are selecting someone to fill the late U.S. Rep. Mark Takai’s seat for the two-month unfinished term and someone to represent the district for the next two years.
Takai died in office last July.
The situation could lead to two different people winning the same House seat on election night, to serve the two different terms.
Former U.S. Rep. Colleen Hanabusa is one of the candidates. The Democrat is hoping to return to her old seat in Congress, which she gave up to run for Senate two years ago.
WHAT’S UNUSUAL ABOUT THIS ELECTION?
Voters in the 1st Congressional District are being asked to vote twice — on the same ballot — for candidates running for the same seat.
Hanabusa, who previously held the congressional seat, won the Democratic primary and is expected to cruise to victory for the two-year term that begins in January.
But voters also have to decide who will finish the remaining two months of Takai’s term, which begins immediately after Election Day, in a special election. And some don’t understand they have to vote twice on the same ballot.
“Lots of voter confusion,” Republican candidate Shirlene Ostrov said.
ARE THE SAME PEOPLE RUNNING IN BOTH THE GENERAL ELECTION AND THE SPECIAL ELECTION?
Not entirely. In the general election for the two-year term, there are four candidates who survived the primary election, and all four — Hanabusa, Ostrov, and the other two — are running in both races.
But in the special election, there are a total of 10 candidates — including four additional Democrats.
ARE VOTERS CONFUSED?
Yes.
Al Coleman, a 57-year-old IT professional who lives in Waikiki, said he voted for Ostrov. But after leaving the early voting location on Oct. 31, Coleman said he only voted for Ostrov once, believing incorrectly that his vote for her would count for both elections. Despite the mix-up, Coleman said he’s not going to lose any sleep over it, because “chances are my candidate won’t win.”
Xavier Cisneros, 48, an airline maintenance supervisor who lives in East Honolulu, said it was a little confusing, but he voted for Hanabusa twice. “I guess you had to put a little thought into it,” Cisneros said. “It wasn’t that user-friendly.”
HOW DOES IT LOOK ON THE BALLOT?
The general and special elections for the same office are listed side-by-side on the ballot. In the first column, the general election for the two-year term appears under “Federal Contests,” labeled “U.S. Representative, Dist I.” In the next column, under “Special Election” is the header “U.S. Representative, Dist I Vacancy,” followed by a list of 10 candidates.
“They’re crunching it all up into one ballot, and there are 10 names,” Hanabusa said. “I think that if you weren’t paying attention to it, you would be very confused.”
WHAT ARE THE CAMPAIGNS DOING TO CLARIFY?
Hanabusa’s campaign is running a video ad on local television stations reminding supporters to vote for Hanabusa twice. Ostrov’s campaign has run radio ads and videos online to explain the situation.
Hanabusa said the special election could have been held earlier by mail.
“The way it is now, the district went unrepresented from June, basically,” Hanabusa said. “It’s a long period of time that the people deserve to have representation.”
WHY DOESN’T THE BALLOT MAKE IT CLEAR?
The order that the races appear on the ballot is prescribed by state law, Chief Elections Officer Scott Nago said. “We couldn’t put it on the back or its own ballot, because the federal-state-county order,” he said.
The Office of Elections distributes an education packet to voters, but the office didn’t include any explanation of the unusual situation in the packet because it’s not a statewide race, he said.
HAS SOMETHING SIMILAR HAPPENED BEFORE?
Yes. In 1986, former U.S. Rep. Cecil Heftel left his House seat to run for governor. In the race to replace him, former Hawaii Gov. Neil Abercrombie — then a state lawmaker — lost the primary election but won the special election held the same day to finish Heftel’s term. Abercrombie served the three-month term, and then Republican former U.S. Rep. Pat Saiki served the full two-year term that followed. Later, Abercrombie was elected to the seat and served for nearly a decade.
WHY WOULD SOMEONE RUN FOR A TWO-MONTH GIG?
Democratic candidate Peter Cross, whose name appears first on the ballot, said he hasn’t run for public office before. But the 44-year-old construction manager said he thought the special election would be a good opportunity to try campaigning.
“I believe that everybody deserves a shot, and I think that most of the people that are running out there pretty much have been there for a long time, and people are ready for something new,” Cross said.
Ostrov said she would be excited to serve Hawaii, even if it’s just for two months, and give Hawaii a voice in the Republican majority in the U.S. House. Plus, she thinks the five Democrats listed in the special election could split the Democratic vote.
“I like to think it improves my chances,” Ostrov said.
16 responses to “State’s unusual congressional election confuses voters”
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I stay current with the news and knew there would be a need to “vote twice”. I already voted with my mail-in ballot and didn’t find it the least bit confusing. Rep. Takai’s death and the need for a special election has been in the news for awhile. If people are so out of touch with what is going on in the community that they were not aware of a special election in addition to the “normal” election, then I have to wonder how much they really know about the candidates and what they stand for in order to be making an intelligent choice in the first place.
So, I’m the only one qualified to vote! Turkey.
pay attention people.
Just more political gobbledygook in Hawaii… where to vote “YES”, mark “NO”… to vote “NO” mark it “YES”… and a “BLANK VOTE” means “NO”.
Confused yet? You and everyone else brother.
Where’s that useless troll ukuleleBS that keeps using HNL/Hawaii and “world class” in the same sentence? And this reported by AP for the rest of the country to see.
Waddajoke
VOTERS ARE CONFUSED? Great! We’ve done are job. Now do as we TOLD you.
“VOTERS ARE CONFUSED?” Apparently so. You’re confusing “are” with “our”.
Hanabusa’s TV ad was useful in helping to “get out the word” about the double voting. This article should also help.
Confused? What a ship of fools this democracy has become.
Colleen has been dipping her beak way too long. Time to send her packing.
Agreed, and we have two opportunities to do so.
Heads up on Peter Cross quoted in this article. I believe him to be the same Peter Cross who did work on my house. Construction manager is a lose term. He’s a typical fly-by-night unreliable self-employed handy man” and — like most in his field — completely unreliable. He came in, bid low, then complained about what a good deal I was getting on how he wasn’t making money, etc. You’ve seen the type. Then left before the job was finished on a so-called emergency, which was a lie. He was working on another project. Long story short, he promised the moon but did very shoddy work. He calls himself a construction manager. The only person he manages is himself. And not very well. He’s not qualified to do home renovations. I wouldn’t trust him to run anything, let alone public office. The nerve of people who think they are qualified to run for office. What a joke. He’s an uneducated, transplanted drifter with delusions of grandeur. He doesn’t have a chance of winning. The never of some people. But just thought I’d warn people. I’m sure he never reads the paper.
Thank you for your post. There are websites that give you information on each candidate. But I suspect that many do not give it due diligence and just vote for the name candidates. That is how we got a lot of votes for candidates that were found to be corrupt like Romy Cachola. Even with the news coverage of his actions people still voted in droves for him. It is even more disturbing to think that they were aware of his actions but still voted for him.
The only confusing part of this year’s ballot were the 20 new amendments proposed. Twenty is a ridiculous amount and some real bad ideas were embedded in the twenty. Some will just pick and chose only the ones talked about. I personally will simply vote NO to all and good riddance. Keep it simple, real simple. What’s in your wallet?
You’re correct that there were some very bad ideas among the amendments, but simply voting “NO” across the board means that some of those bad ideas may become reality.
I suspect that the bigger issue and which affects our system greatly are the ballot questions that are worded in a legalese style that may confuse the masses who may not be accustomed to the way they are presented. I had to actually stop and reread the questions like the one regarding the creation of a new commission to decide on pay for a state agency for example. On quick inspection it seems fair enough. But if you really think about it, creating a new commission for that department is adding more bureaucracy to the system. The StarAdvertiser could have helped the voters by presenting the questions on the ballot so that the voters can deliberate on the issues PRIOR to the voting. I actually did mine over the mail so I had time to give it much thought. But for those that are busy and just enter the booth to vote it may not be given the thought it should have received. Thus, we may have answers from voters that may not reflect their true intentions. Hopefully, the voters who gave it much thought will have been the ones who answered the questions and those that did not left the questions alone. This fact is quite disturbing if in fact many voters just winged the question and did not actually give it much thought. I do hope in the future that SA will present the ballot initiatives prior to the actual voting. If it was presented, I had totally missed it. Fortunately, the information can be gotten through research online. But for most, that might not be an option.