Sign up once, get absentee ballots forever

Question: I was surprised to get in the mail an absentee ballot. I don’t recollect asking for one. I had planned to vote on primary election day as a walk-in, because I like to see how things are going. Why did I get a ballot in the mail? I ended up voting absentee anyway. My friend said that the last election was a mail-in special election and that was the only way you could vote. Would the elections office think that then meant we wanted to vote absentee from that point on?

Answer: That election had nothing to do with absentee mail-in voting.

To get an absentee ballot, you are required to be a registered voter and fill out an application form.

Two years ago the state began offering the option of being a “permanent absentee voter,” meaning once you signed up for it and met the requirements, you would receive an absentee ballot in the mail every election without having to reapply.

“A lot of people filled out the application and forgot they did it and that it was on a permanent basis,” noted Glen Taka­ha­shi, Hono­lulu’s election administrator. “We don’t generate a ballot packet unless we have documentation that someone requested it.”

With your permission, he looked up your record and found that you did sign up for permanent absentee voting two years ago.

However, voters who receive an absentee ballot still have the option of voting in person at early voting sites, which open 10 working days before each election.

At those sites “we will invalidate the mail-in ballot and let them vote (in person), provided they haven’t voted on that ballot and mailed it back,” Taka­ha­shi said. He said the elections staff would have a record if someone sent in an absentee ballot; in that case the person wouldn’t be allowed to vote a second time.

For the Aug. 11 primary election, early voting sites at Hono­lulu Hale, Kapolei Hale and the Pali Golf Course Clubhouse opened Monday and will be open through Saturday from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. For more information, go to www.honoluluelections.org/locations.

People with absentee ballots also could vote on Election Day, but that’s discouraged because computers wouldn’t be readily available to check records to make sure someone hasn’t voted twice, likely resulting in lengthy delays.

“We recommend that it be done at the early voting site because we have records handy,” Taka­ha­shi said.

To get off the permanent absentee voter rolls, you must send a letter to that effect to the appropriate county clerk’s office, giving your name, date of birth and address. On Oahu the address is Office of the City Clerk, 530 S. King St., Room 100, Hono­lulu 96813-3099.

Question: I thought if a person didn’t vote in two consecutive elections, their names would be removed from the election register. I know five people in my neighborhood whose names are listed at the precinct every election for 20 years and they’ve never voted. Doesn’t the state have some kind of purging system to remove the names of the dead or people who don’t vote?

Answer: Yes, it does, but not because they haven’t voted for a while.

State law once mandated that someone would be removed from the voter rolls after two election cycles of inactivity.

But in 1993, Congress passed a law to prevent the removal of names solely on the basis of non-activity, said Glen Taka­ha­shi, the city election administrator.

Since that time “you could be registered and just decide not to vote, and you can stay on the rolls almost forever,” he said.

However, a name will be removed for what Taka­ha­shi calls “a dual trigger”: the first being evidence that an address has changed; the second, two election cycles of nonactivity.

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