Hawaii election officials to ask voters to update signatures for vote-by-mail

Election officials will soon invite more than 760,000 registered voters to update their signatures on file with the county clerks as part of the preparations for Hawaii’s new all-mail voting system, lawmakers were told Wednesday.

Those signatures on file with the county clerks will become particularly important under the new voting system because the counties will use sorting machines and trained staff to match them up with the signatures on mail-in ballots to confirm each voter’s identity.

State lawmakers and Gov. David Ige this year approved Act 136 to create universal mail-in voting starting in the 2020 election cycle, and members of the House and Senate Judiciary Committees were briefed Wednesday on preparations for the new system.

According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, Hawaii is one of four states that have approved statewide vote-by-mail systems, but Hawaii has yet to hold a statewide all-mail election. There have been smaller mail-in elections locally, including this year’s Honolulu City Council race for the East Honolulu urban area.

Oregon, Washington and Colorado also hold their elections by mail, and some counties in California are authorized to hold all-mail elections, according to NCSL.

All-mail systems are considerably cheaper than traditional voting, and a study by Pew Charitable Trusts found the average savings was about 40% per election.

In Hawaii, more than half of the voters in each election already cast their ballots using absentee walk-in or mail-in voting under the existing system, which means a sizable portion of the public is already familiar with voting by mail.

Research shows that voting by mail helps increase voter turnout somewhat, and the League of Women Voters of Hawaii this year cited that potential bump in turnout as its primary reason for supporting an all-mail system here.

General election turnout in the most recent presidential election in 2016 was 58.4% of registered voters, while statewide turnout in the non-presidential year 2018 was 52.7%.

House Republican leader Gene Ward said he hopes the new system will “push the envelop to bigger, larger and fuller participation in the Democratic process.”

Under the new system, all registered voters will be mailed their ballots about 18 days before election day, said Chief Election Officer Scott Nago.

The state will drop the old system of operating precinct voting sites across the state, but will open a more limited network of “voter service centers” 10 business days before the election. People will be able to register and vote in person at those centers if they choose to do so, Nago said.

Voters can mail their ballots back, or deposit them at drop sites that will open five days before the election. State and county officials will accept ballots at those drop sites or via the mail system as late as 7 p.m. on election day.

Elections officials will begin processing the ballots they receive 10 days before election day, but they warned that final vote counts probably won’t be available until well after midnight on election day.

Nago said the state is planning a public education campaign of election mailings, media buys and other public outreach “to inform voters that all voters will receive a ballot in the mail, and voting places as we have traditionally used them will no longer exist.”

Material explaining the new process was mailed to voters in July, and more information will be distributed in January, he said. In April a “signature capture” card will be distributed to all voters by mail inviting them to update their signatures, Nago said.

“How many will respond, I don’t know,” said Honolulu City Clerk Glen Takahashi.

Voters’ signatures often change in the years after they first register to vote. In cases where the old registration signatures don’t match those on the mail-in ballots, letters are mailed out to those voters to ask them to confirm the ballot, Takahashi said.

Those voters will then have five or six days after the election to sign that confirmation form and mail it back with an updated signature. Those ballots can then be counted, he said.

“The final (count) isn’t really final on election night. It’s not going to be final until probably six days afterward, because there’s always this group that we have got to follow up on signatures,” Takahashi said.

The state media campaign will explain the importance of collecting current signatures from registered voters, Nago said.