State voter rolls need updating

Regarding Hawaii’s dismal primary election turnout: I am a household of one. Each voting season I receive yellow registered voter precinct notification cards for two former members of my household who are registered to vote in different states.

Each year I call the voter registration office to notify it of the discrepancy. Each year I am told to return the card with a note on it saying they are no longer registered in this state. Then each year I go to the polls and sure enough, I find their names still on our register.

Each year I have the election personnel write a note next to the names and indicate that they vote in different states. So in my household alone, it looks like we have a 33 percent participation rate, when actually it’s 100 percent. Who’s in charge of this? If these lists were scrubbed, I bet our voter turnout numbers would not be as dismal as they seem.

Elizabeth Schowalter

Kaneohe

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Keep control on clearances

Many years ago, I had a top-secret security clearance. Among other tasks, I taught the basic principles of intelligence gathering at an officers’ training school. When that job ended so did my security clearance, since I no longer had any “need-to-know.”

“Need-to-know” is the most basic of protective measures to keep the nation’s secrets secure, which is why I am puzzled as to why all these former intelligence officials have top-secret clearances when they no longer have jobs requiring them.

I can understand that having a current clearance is invaluable when selling one’s consulting qualifications on security matters. Having monetized the security clearance, I can also understand why one would want to maintain it. What I do not understand is what good that does the nation; it is taking unnecessary risks of secrets being leaked.

Cliff Slater

Pacific Heights

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Vote Democrat and Republican

I both agree and disagree with Melvin Partido Sr. (“Vote Republican in general election,” Star-Advertiser, Letters, Aug. 17).

I believe we should continue to send Hawaii Democrats to Washington, because it’s necessary to check national Republicans and the corrupt President Donald Trump, in particular, who have clearly proven an inability to govern in the people’s interest.

At the local level, however, it’s time to throw the Democratic bums out. They have ruled here for decades and have turned Hawaii into a Third-World state.

There is no money to fix our fast-decaying infrastructure, but plenty for a ridiculous railroad. We can’t afford rail now and have no way to pay for maintenance in the future.

Developers get approval for whatever they want to build without being required to fund the infrastructure their projects will require, all while devoting a pittance to “affordable” housing.

We have a bottle bill that costs customers more to buy than to redeem — no other bottle-bill state does that. This is merely the tip of the iceberg.

Jim Keefe

Waikiki

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Trump lies more than newspapers

It’s fascinating that on the day President Donald Trump’s lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, comes out with the statement that “truth isn’t the truth,” two letter writers take newspapers to task for biased anti-Trump reporting (“News media needs to correct biases,” “Media can be guilty of issuing ‘fake news’,” Star- Advertiser, Aug. 19).

Yes, newspapers and other news sources do make mistakes and can be biased; this has been true since President George Washington’s administration. But to ascribe honesty to Trump, the liar in chief, or to Kellyanne Conway, she of the “alternative facts,” is indeed fake news.

Robert S. Sandla

Hawaii Kai

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Dog owners can behave badly

I agree with Bruce Lum’s letter requesting that dogs be banned in Ala Moana Regional Park (“Don’t allow dogs at Ala Moana park,” Star-Advertiser, Letters, Aug. 17).

The dogs aren’t the problem. It’s the owners. While most owners obey the laws, there are enough perpetrators that it is noticeable. Some owners let their dogs off the leash, allow their dogs to crap near the ocean, do not pick up all the dogs’ poop and in general are disrespectful of signs, regulations and common sense (bringing a dog into a market or a drugstore, for example).

This reprobate behavior is not confined to Ala Moana Park. It occurs on local hiking trails, Manoa District Park and at Manoa Elementary School, where there are signs posted that say, in part, “No dogs.”

Yet, owners walk and even take their dogs off the leash there.

Diantha Goo

Manoa