Governor wants all elections conducted via mail

Saying ballot shortages at dozens of voting sites on election day "eroded public confidence," Gov. Neil Abercrombie said Monday he wants Hawaii elections to be conducted entirely by mail.

Abercrombie also said he asked Attorney General David Louie to investigate the state Office of Elections and the circumstances that led to the ballot shortages, including 24 polling places on Oahu running out entirely.

"You cannot have a situation in which people believe that their candidate may have suffered adversely as a result of mechanical or administrative snags, let alone the idea that there might have been … more than just a malfunction of the election process," Abercrombie said at a news conference. "Those kind of suspicions get created by default."

Oregon and Washington state conduct all-mail elections.

Abercrombie acknowledged that his office does not have authority to oversee the Office of Elections, but said the state should at least consider new technologies that could help cut down on inconsistencies. He said he will propose legislation in January to move Hawaii to 100 percent mail-in balloting.

"I think part of the way to deal with this is to move into a mail-in ballot across the board and have the Legislature take a look at whether it might want to restructure the Office of Elections," he said. "I’ve been an advocate for some time (of mail-in ballots). … It makes good sense."

On election day, 70 polling places on Oahu ran short or ran out of paper ballots, forcing hundreds of residents to wait for hours to vote. Witnesses reported that many voters gave up and left the lines. One site on Kauai and two on Hawaii island also ran short.

Chief Election Officer Scott Nago has apologized, saying his office did not order the correct amount of paper ballots for certain polling places.

In an e-mailed statement Monday, Nago declined to comment on the governor’s request that the attorney general investigate the ballot shortages.

"As it relates to all-mail voting, the office takes no position as this is a policy issue for the Legislature," Nago added. "When the matter comes up for hearing at the Legislature, the office will provide technical comments."

Abercrombie said mail-in voting has been effective in other parts of the country, and that the steady increase in absentee voting in Hawaii indicates such voting is as accurate and secure as traditional balloting.

Only Washington and Oregon have moved to an all-mail ballot, while Hawaii is among seven states plus the District of Columbia that allow people to declare themselves permanent absentee voters, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

Hawaii voters have increasingly turned to absentee voting, by either mailing in a ballot or through early walk-in voting.

In the 2012 general election, 45.8 percent of all ballots cast were "absentee," by mail or early walk-in, slightly down from the 49 percent in the August primary. In 2008’s general election, 38.5 percent of voters cast absentee ballots.

Proposals to move to an all-mail vote have been introduced in Hawaii, including this year’s session, when it stalled at the committee level. County clerks say the process should be phased in over several elections, adding that counties would need to upgrade equipment or hire additional staff to process the requests.

Currently, signatures on each returned mail-in ballot must be checked manually, which involves an employee scanning a bar code, pulling up a voter’s registration and "eyeballing" the signatures on the ballot and registration to confirm a voter’s identity, said Bernice Mau, Hono­lulu city clerk.

"It’s a good idea, but it should be done in phases," Mau said. "And there’s going to be upfront costs in buying equipment in the state or the counties purchasing equipment to be able to process all these ballots."

Mau’s office mailed more than 125,000 absentee ballots for the 2012 general election. In all, there were more than 705,000 registered voters in the state.

The Honolulu city clerk has conducted three all-mail elections for City Council vacancies since 2009. Mau noted that districts each had about 50,000 people with responses mixed — 45 percent voted in April 2009, 41 percent in August 2009 and 23 percent in December 2010.

"They ran smoothly, but to do an all-state ballot, it’s not going to be as easy as people think it’s going to be," Mau said.

"I don’t believe we have the technology right now on the islands to get that many ballots out all at one time," she added. "You’ve got to kind of phase it in and get people, also, to buy in to it. You still have people that like to go to the polls."

Voters in Oregon in 1998 approved a measure to switch to all-mail voting and conducted their first such vote in 2000. The move was made after voters increasingly began requesting absentee ballots.

"Oregon is a mix of rural and city, and it seemed to fit the needs of Oregonians," said Andrea Cantu-Schomus, spokes­woman for Oregon Secretary of State Kate Brown. "Voters decided that was the way they wanted to go."

The Washington Legislature passed the all-mail vote measure last year, although 38 of the state’s 39 counties already had gone to all-mail ballots after the state allowed counties to enact such measures in 2004.

Permanent absentee balloting was allowed in 1993, and the state had seen a steady rise in applications since, said Katie Blinn, co-director of the Washington Secretary of State’s Elections Division.

Hawaii’s voter turnout has been the worst in the nation the past two presidential elections, despite having Hawaii-born Barack Obama at the top of the ticket.

Washington and Oregon voter turnout rates each topped 80 percent in 2012 and 2008.

"Recently in Oregon, after more than a decade, the state is consistently in the top 10 states for voter turnout, and Secretary of State Kate Brown believes that has a lot to do with the all-mail-in voting," Cantu-Schomus said. "It’s accessible, convenient and cost-effective."

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Star-Advertiser reporters Mary Vorsino and Marcie Kagawa contributed to this report.