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2024 Hawaii & National Election Coverage

Today is Election Day, once the pinnacle of the always exhausting, protracted American campaign season. It is still a culmination but in 2020, it’s arrived at the end of a long, unprecedented surge in early voting. Already more than 93 million ballots have been returned across the nation, both by mail and at early-voting stations.

This is a historically consequential presidential race, and political tensions have rarely been higher. Concerns about conflicts sparking around the polling process are at a peak, though less so in Hawaii than in mainland cities. And officials of the Aloha State want to keep things that way, urging voters to stay calm and carry on.

Most of this change was precipitated by the coronavirus pandemic, with many states hurriedly making absentee or mail-in ballots far more accessible to reduce the risk of COVID-19 transmission. Hawaii, fortunately, had enacted all-mail voting and spent a year preparing for what so far has been a fairly smooth transition, especially compared with the confusion experienced in some other states.

A record-breaking 335,021 ballots already have been collected on Oahu as of Saturday, Mayor Kirk Caldwell said on Monday. But there still are hundreds of thousands of ballots outstanding, given that more than 832,000 voters were registered statewide (549,935 on Oahu). This is another record achievement, one that must not be squandered by leaving all those ballots on the kitchen table.

So the work is not done yet here. There are thousands who should vote today, and some still need a nudge to complete the task properly. Those who assume that a Nov. 3 postmark is sufficient, or that they can go to their old polling precinct must be told: Neither is true.

>> Do not put this ballot in the mail. It’s due to be in the hands of elections officials by 7 tonight in order to be counted.

>> There are no conventional polling places scattered through the islands. Instead, there is a far smaller number of Voter Service Centers (at Honolulu Hale and Kapolei Hale on Oahu), where in-person voting will continue today.

>> And there are drop boxes (“Places of Deposit”) where the ballot also can be brought until 7 p.m. Make sure the ballot is enclosed within the provided “secrecy sleeve,” which is inserted in the outer envelope, with the voter’s signature. The county clerk’s offices statewide will see that these are brought to the Office of Elections crew at day’s end.

>> If there is a problem validating the voter’s ID through the envelope signature, voters will be notified and get a chance to rectify the problem within five days after the election; those late-verified ballots also will count in the official, final tally.

To avoid that possibility, voters yet to cast a ballot could bring an ID and vote at one of the service centers, which also handle same-day voter registration (both the locations of centers and of drop boxes are listed at elections.hawaii.gov under the “Voter Service Centers &Places of Deposit” link). Either the drop-box or vote-in-person option would work today.

There is a clear call to fulfill this civic duty this year. The presidential race has grabbed all the headlines, but locally mayors and county and state lawmakers also will be chosen. A careful choice is critically important for budgets, taxes and other issues that matter.

Voting with care is also a peaceful act. State Reps. Della Belatti and Gene Ward, the majority and minority leader, on Sunday sent out a bipartisan message for Election Day: “Let’s remember who we are on Nov. 3, and we will get through these tumultuous times.”

That’s a mandate that all Americans should hear, and embrace.