Action needed on mail-in balloting to increase voter turnout

Mail-in balloting has been popular among Hawaii’s most active voters, but the Legislature has sidestepped the next logical step of switching everybody to mail-in voting to improve our dismal overall turnout.

More and more voters have opted for mail-in ballots in each election since lawmakers first allowed permanent absentee voting status in 2008.

Absentee voting surpassed 50 percent in the 2016 general election, with 234,336 choosing the option — some 30,000 more than voted in person on Election Day.

Popularity with voters, relatively few problems with mail-in ballots and evidence from other states that all-mail voting increases turnout and saves money have led state and county election officials and a big majority of legislators to support the change.

Yet every year since serious debate began in 2002, bills to do so have died in the Legislature.

Last year, a measure to begin all-mail Hawaii elections in 2020 passed the House and Senate unanimously, but stalled in a conference committee to resolve language differences between the houses.

A similar bill passed the House this year 44-3, only to die when the Senate refused a hearing.

The last hope is that last year’s measure, House Bill 1401, is technically still alive and could be revived if the two houses reconvened the conference to work out differences.

Legislators should take this opportunity to invigorate our moribund elections without further delay; all-mail voting has little downside and has been thoroughly vetted over several sessions since 2002.

Under HB 1401, ballots would be mailed to all registered voters in counties that are ready, beginning with the 2020 primary election. Scattered walk-in sites with same-day registration would be open for those who prefer voting in person.

Election officers say it’s expensive and increasingly difficult to find reliable poll workers, and switching to mail would save nearly $1 million.

We have substantial experience with mail voting since 2008 and security worries haven’t materialized; to the contrary, most election problems have been with in-person voting: ballot shortages, weather disruptions, late poll openings.

Mail-in voting provides the accountability of paper ballots to document every vote, unlike some of the voting machines at polling places. Stiff penalties exist to deter voter fraud and intimidation, just as with in-person voting.

Low voter turnout empowers the entrenched and leaves policy-making to special interests that take care of their own at the expense of the broader public interest.

There’s no silver bullet for boosting participation in our elections, but mail-in voting is the best idea currently out there, and we need to do something after only 43 percent of eligible Hawaii voters cast ballots in the 2016 presidential election, a national low.

Legislators are too close to an agreement to wait another year and another election.