All the evidence needed to show that our elections must improve could be found in Hawaii’s 2012 primary and general elections.

First in the primary, Gov. Neil Abercrombie was forced to order Hawaii island polling stations to remain open after normal voting hours, because some voters there were faced with shuttered polling places when they went to vote.

The state voting system became more of a mess in the general election when scores of Oahu polling places ran out of ballots.

Scott Nago, state elections chief, said they miscalculated and applied the wrong formula for how many ballots to send out to the precincts.

It doesn’t really matter. Running out of ballots for any reason means you are not running the election right.

Instead we should mail ballots to voters. Ask that voters complete the ballot and mail it back. Companies mail bills to customers, who then mail back payments. No new wheels need be invented.

In a post on the liberal blog FireDogLake.com, David Daven, wrote: "It’s impossible to envision a better system for voting than just doing it by mail. It’s so intuitive that you would wonder why we would ever do it another way."

So far, mail-in voting has worked fine for more than a decade in Oregon and Washington.

Hawaii’s current elections system is built on a small state staff, helped by the appointed clerks in the four counties. The two systems somewhat merge before and on election day to float an armada of volunteers across the state to staff the precinct polls, audit the polling books, collect the ballots and prepare the results.

The many levels of safeguards needed to ensure a fair election make the system more complex than mail out, vote, mail back, but still it would do away with many costly and embarrassing problems.

If you have no polling places, you don’t need to train poll workers to make sure the polls open on time. Without polls in schools and cafeterias, there is no need to estimate how many ballots need to be delivered to each poll. If there are no polls, nobody is standing in line for three hours waiting to vote.

Much like buying solar panels for your house, investing in a new mail-only voting system would mean new expenses — but over the years, officials say, it would pay off.

The state actually used a vote by mail system for the 2010 congressional special election with much success. Voter turnout was 54 percent, which is outstanding for a Hawaii election. U.S. Rep. Colleen Hanabusa, who didn’t win that race but triumphed in the ensuing contests, says the vote by mail plan worked and Hawaii should start thinking about going to all-mail ballots.

"Our geographical challenges will be overcome for statewide elections, and it is becoming more and more difficult to staff polling places. We know absentee mail has a great percentage of return," Hanabusa said in an interview.

She added that a mail system could be "a lot cheaper, with greater return, and I did not hear of any allegations of voter fraud. The Legislature should look into it."

Lt. Gov. Brian Schatz is also thinking good thoughts about vote by mail.

"All mail-in ballots could be the wave of the future. If we can address the security concerns, this is something that the Legislature ought to consider seriously," said Schatz.

In the end, a vote by mail system is not so much about being bold, as it is rescuing a system on the verge of collapse.

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Richard Borreca writes on politics on Sundays, Tuesdays and Fridays. Reach him aT rborreca@staradvertiser. com