In Hawaii’s largest effort at mail-in ballots, island voters overwhelmingly made their preference known last week, while potentially delivering a death sentence for the time-honored tradition of in-person voting.
Out of 406,425 votes cast by Saturday night’s primary election deadline, 99% — or 400,952 — were delivered by mail-in ballot.
By comparison, fewer than 1% of votes — or 5,473 — were made in person, according to the state Office of Elections.
Voters across Oahu and the entire state cast ballots in numbers never seen before Saturday night’s primary election — nearly 97,000 more than the previous record number of votes for a primary election, set in 1994.
And in the days leading up to last week’s election deadline — and even on Saturday — voters repeatedly told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser that they liked the opportunity to have their mail-in ballots at home for a couple of weeks to consider their options, even if they finally deposited their ballots in person.
Some, such as Sam Schank, 63, of Nuuanu, preferred voting in person at his old polling site, Nuuanu Elementary School, one of 235 former voting sites across the islands, he told the Star- Advertiser on Saturday.
But Schank showed up hours before voting ended to turn in his mail-in ballot in person, to ensure that it was counted. Hours later, two potential voters were seen on TV at Honolulu Hale in an unsuccessful effort to drop off ballots just seconds after voting ended.
Other voters who cast ballots by mail-in vote said they think participation could even increase for November’s general election — which will decide America’s next president — if election officials place more ballot drop boxes around the islands.
The decision whether to add more drop-off boxes ultimately will be made by each county clerk’s office.
But Nedielyn Bueno, spokeswoman for the state Office of Elections, said the idea may come up — along with potential ways to increase voter awareness messaging ahead of the general election — during post-mortem election discussions that likely will occur later this month among all island election officials.
In general, Bueno said, “We were happy. Seeing the high turnout shows that vote-by-mail is something voters are happy with. It’s accessible and convenient, which has always been the mission of the Office of Elections. It showed that voters did like it.”
Or as political analyst Jerry Burris put it, “It was a mail-in ballot phenomenon. They didn’t have to get dressed, didn’t have to drive anywhere. Just mark your ballot and throw it in the mail. It’s easy. It was so easy you wondered why half the people didn’t do it.”
Burris is right.
While more primary votes than ever before came in, just over 51% of Hawaii’s 795,248 registered voters actually cast ballots.
“The upside, it’s a much larger increase than anybody expected,” said former University of Hawaii political science professor Neal Milner. “It’s an inexplicable increase.”
Without scientific polling, there is no data to tell who actually drove Hawaii voting to record levels.
But Milner suspects that the convenience of mail-in inspired a wide range of voters, including young people who were eligible to vote for the first time, along with others who had never voted before and millennials who may be fired up to get involved in the political process.
“Something’s going on that’s impressive,” Milner said. “Lots of people just don’t care about the political process and about voting. So this is impressive.”
Out of 400,952 mail-in ballots, the majority — 303,318, or 76% — were cast by Democrats. Only 76,914 mail-in ballots — or 19% — were cast by Republicans.
The numbers were much closer when it came to in-person voting.
Some 2,792 Democrats voted in person, representing 51% of the 5,473 in-person votes; compared to 40% of Republicans, or 2,217 Republicans who voted in person.
So Milner is anxious to see if the high numbers continue through November — and whether they eventually will change Hawaii’s low voter participation rates, which traditionally trail the rest of the country.
In the meantime, Milner had nothing but praise for how voting went in Hawaii’s first attempt at large-scale, mail-in voting.
Milner, a regular television political pundit, said nothing went obviously wrong and the first and second vote counts made for an early and easy night of election reporting.
“This thing went off well,” he said. “I can’t imagine they could have asked for anything better. And this coming from a guy who’s always looking for something.”
Always the university professor, Milner gave elections officials a grade of “A” for their first large-scale effort at mail-in voting.
But there’s always another test.
“We’ll see how they do on the next one,” he said.
TOP 10 PRIMARY VOTE COUNTS
Year / Registered Voters / Voter Turnout / Turnout %
2020 795,248 406,425 51.1%
1994 468,739 309,700 66.1%
2010 684,481 293,016 42.8%
1998 582,558 291,069 50 %
2012 687,500 290,766 42.3%
2014 697,033 289,398 41.5%
1978 387,673 289,029 74.6%
2018 741,007 286,180 38.6%
1986 398,197 281,352 70.7%
2006 655,741 276,693 42.2%
Source: State Office of Elections
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