Non-citizens may not vote in Hawaii elections, yet the Legislature has considered automatic voter registration when filing a state tax return or applying for a driver’s license.

One hundred percent voting by mail may reduce government’s expenses but is not likely to increase voting numbers much.

For example: My 41-unit condo has sent pre-paid, mail-in proxies for annual meetings that had to be rescheduled for failure to achieve a 50% quorum. Only a large assessment for repairs and the expense of hiring a professional board of directors got the owners’ attention for enough to vote. Hawaii’s elections have no such stick to prod voters to respond.

Current mail-in voting procedures led to a situation where a candidate won races with a percentage of mail-in ballots received consistently surpassing the state average and causing speculation of vote fraud and illegal political activity. Not much imagination is needed to figure how to use, profitably, the fact that all registered voters have only one way to vote.

Ronald Wong

Salt Lake

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