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COURTESY PHOTO
Tommy Waters
Honolulu City Council candidate Tommy Waters, who lost to incumbent Councilman Trevor Ozawa by 22 votes in the general election, wants the Hawaii Supreme Court to either declare him the winner, order a recount of the votes or to demand that the results be invalidated and a new election be held.
Waters filed his petition challenging the results of the Council District 4 (East Honolulu) election against the state Office of Elections, Chief Elections Officer Scott Nago and Honolulu City Clerk Glen Takahashi this afternoon.
The complaint said the election officials “miscounted or misapplied 39,610 votes thereby causing a situation that did cause a difference in the election results.” In particular, Waters said “1,286 late night absentee ballots” were miscounted and that he should have been declared the winner. The vote count, until that point, showed Waters ahead by 72 votes.
The 22 votes separating the two candidates is .0006 of 1 percent, a difference that falls within the margin of error for the vote-counting machines used for Hawaii elections, the complaint said.
After losing to Ozawa by 41 votes in their first tussle in 2014, Waters petitioned against those results. The Hawaii Supreme Court denied the request.
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