Elections went smoothly till lawmakers took action

Hawaii elections have been exercises in ineptitude since the Legislature decided in 1995 that it was a bad idea for voting to be supervised by a partisan elected official and took the job away from the lieutenant governor.

Elections were put under the control of an unaccountable commission appointed by the House speaker, Senate president and minority leaders from both houses.

The irony is that in the 36 years the lieutenant governor ran Hawaii elections, there were few major foul-ups in the balloting or serious allegations of political manipulation.

In the 17 years since the LG’s involvement ended, one problem after another has shaken public confidence in the integrity of our elections.

It came to a head this year when thousands of Hawaii voters were disenfranchised by bungling on the Big Island in the primary election that forced an emergency extension of voting hours, and widespread ballot shortages on Oahu in the general election.

The Elections Commission and attorney general are conducting competing investigations into what went wrong, and a fed-up Gov. Neil Abercrombie has proposed that future elections be conducted entirely by mail.

That’s worth considering, but whether we vote in polling booths or by mail, the integrity of our elections will remain in question until we restore accountability to their governance.

This year’s problems were only the latest in what’s become a biennial bad drama.

Since the 1998 election, we’ve had allegations of fraud in counting votes, political squabbling among commissioners, attempts by lawmakers to manipulate the timing of elections, politically motivated funding disputes, endless problems with voting machine contracts, confusion at the filing deadline, fights over candidate disqualifications, rule changes in midgame, misprinted ballots and judicial rebukes.

Two chief state election officers have been forced out in the last three voting cycles because of the troubles, and if current elections chief Scott Nago doesn’t survive his fumbles this year, it’ll be three guys out in four cycles.

Most troubling of all is that Hawaii is embarrassed every two years by some of the lowest voter turnouts in the nation.

The fact is, the system wasn’t broken until the Legislature “fixed” it in 1995.

It’s impossible to remove politics from anything in Hawaii, and the only thing accomplished by taking the lieutenant governor out of the election equation was to remove recourse for voters when things go wrong.

Having the lieutenant governor run elections made simple good sense; with few other responsibilities assigned to the office, the one opportunity to shine provided high motivation to do the job right.

Every LG wants to be governor, and presiding over a fiasco like this year’s election would greatly dim any chance of winning promotion.

That’s as true a line of accountability as we’ll ever get.

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Reach David Shapiro at volcanicash@gmail.com or blog.volcanicash.net.