COVID-restricted campaigning, mail-in votes make for historic election

Hawaii’s Aug. 8 statewide primary election will be unlike any other, with the first mail-in voting being conducted across the islands as COVID-19 prevents candidates from traditional door-to-door, face-to-face campaigning.

It’s yet to be determined how the confluence of events — both planned and unexpected — will affect Hawaii’s standing as a state with one of the consistently lowest voter turnouts in the nation.

The marquee races this year will decide who will become Honolulu’s newest mayor, followed by the vote for Honolulu prosecutor.

At the same time, there are few serious challenges to current members of the state Legislature likely to excite voters. And 10 incumbents in the House and four in the Senate, including Democratic Senate President Ron Kouchi in District 8, representing Kauai-Niihau, face no opposition at all.

So retired University of Hawaii political science professor Neal Milner does not expect to see a big jump in voter turnout this election season. In the 2018 primary election, only 38.6% of the state’s registered voters cast ballots.

“In a low-visibility election, you have to get your name out there,” Milner said. “But this is so unprecedented because the COVID-19 virus changes the way you campaign. They’re really shooting blind in lots of ways.”

Former Republican state Sen. Sam Slom decided to run for his former East Honolulu District 9 seat this year after being badly beaten by Democrat Stanley Chang four years ago.

At the “young age of 78,” Slom returned to a different campaign landscape in 2020.

“You don’t have that intimacy this year,” Slom said. “This year is unlike any other year. … People don’t want to see us — and I love talking to people.”

Even when former island son Barack Obama won his two terms to the White House in 2008 and 2012, Hawaii voter turnout remained among the lowest in the country.

In the era of COVID-19, Milner said voter turnout would likely be even worse this election season if people had to physically show up to vote. “Voter turnout would drop,” he said.

A 2019 change in Hawaii election law, called Act 136, mandates that all elections be conducted by mail while eliminating most traditional polling places.

Although the deadline for online voter registration for the primary election has passed, voters may still register and vote on the same day in person from 10 days before and through Election Day. But they will have to find a voter service center in their county to do so, according to the state Office of Elections.

Voters should begin receiving their mail-in ballot packet 18 days before the primary election, or starting July 21.

There are some new details to follow to ensure a voter’s ballot counts this year:

Just as with in-person voting, marked ballots must be placed in a “secrecy sleeve” provided in the packet. Ballots should then be put into a prepaid return envelope addressed to each county’s clerk’s office and dropped in the mail. In the alternative, ballots may be hand-delivered to the county clerk’s office or dropped off at a designated place of deposit or at voter service centers.

Unsigned ballot return envelopes will not be counted, according to the Office of Elections.

Drop-off and mailed ballots must be received by the 7 p.m. deadline on Election Day or they won’t count — regardless of whether postmarked prior to Aug. 8. For that reason, officials recommend mailing ballots at least three to five days before Election Day, especially if mailing from a rural area.

Voters who make mistakes on their mail-in ballots or misplace or damage them may get a replacement through their county clerk. But they are committed to their votes once the clerk receives the ballot.

Ballots will still be counted even if voters do not vote in each race.

If mainland voting trends translate to Hawaii, Todd Belt — a former UH-Hilo political science professor who is now a professor and director of political management at George Washington University in Washington, D.C. — believes that voter turnout in Hawaii could increase.

“It’s pretty tragic that Hawaii had a very high turnout rate when Hawaii first became a state (in 1959) and now it’s the lowest,” Belt said. “Not one of the lowest, but the lowest.”

Now that Hawaii has gone to mail-in voting, Belt said, “I would expect that Hawaii would have the same sort of results that other states, such as Oregon and Washington and a few other states that have gone to all-mail voting, have experienced, which is an extreme increase in voter turnout. Once people start voting absentee, the people really enjoy the benefits and the convenience.”

With island politicians restricted from face-to-face contact with voters or appearing at large gatherings, Belt said well-financed campaigns have an even greater edge.

“We’ve never had this thing before: The better resourced a group is, the better results they get,” he said. “With social media you’d like to think it gives the little guy a chance. Instead, those armies can be brought to bear on social media for message magnification. It sort of magnifies the difference between the haves and the have-nots.”