Hawaii’s voters are getting some national recognition. Not for our primary election winners or losers. And not because of our unique local politics, but thanks to our local voters.
Hawaii’s voters remain solidly a Democratic majority just like in every election. This year there were about 244,400 Democratic and 73,400 Republican votes.
Of course in the November general election more voters will come out with both the GOP and Democrat numbers expected to grow. Still the expectations are for unquestionable Democratic control of the state.
This year, however, Hawaii is getting a mention in the national political magazine, “The Washington Monthly,” which in its August edition says: “Hawaii’s vote tally has major implications even though Hawaii predictably voted in a Democratic landslide.
“Despite how boring that was,” the national political magazine observed, “the Hawaii primary … saw 40% of the state’s registered voters cast ballots.
“That is the third highest turnout rate in the country this year.”
Only 11% of New York’s voters showed up for that East Coast contest, the magazine observed.
One major difference is that Hawaii is a full “vote at home state,” as the monthly described the way Hawaii runs full vote-by-mail election while New York “has one of the nation’s most restrictive vote-by-mail regimes.” It shows that six of the 10 states with the highest vote turnout are home states. So far there is no definitive voting political research that shows mail-in voting favors either Democrats or Republicans, so vote by mail isn’t helping either major political party.
What it is doing, however, is changing how one wins local political races.
Veteran Democratic political volunteer Rick Tsujimura explained that vote by mail is switching the timing and therefore the strategy in local politics.
It used to be that local political workers would time everything for Election Day. All the ads, the last-minute hard-hitting attacks, the big announcements, everything was timed to be around the time voters would be filling out their ballots.
Now, Tsujimura said, if voters mail their ballot nearly a month before they are to be counted, the election goes on for a month.
“You can’t even start that when they are mailed. You have to reach them with your message early. It’s got to be at least a month or six weeks before; the election is an elongated window,” Tsujimura said in an interview.
With this new political timing, a campaign now has several key calendar days, not just Election Day. First, when voters get their ballot, many voters immediately mark their ballot and mail them back. Candidates have to ramp up commercials a month before Election Day.
Then there is a period of continual voting as decisions are made and finally, some voters decide just before the election deadline. So one Election Day now becomes three election periods: when you get the ballot in the mail, the month it sits on your kitchen counter, and finally the deadline to mail it back.
“This makes the election day an eight-week marathon and that drives up the cost,” Tsujimura said.
For campaigners like Tsujimura it makes politics more than a science.
“You have got to decide, do you do this or that? Campaigning now is much more strategic,” he said. “There are no hard calls to make; this isn’t science, it is an art.”
While vote-by-mail elections are changing tactics and strategy, none of it matters unless voters are willing to mail back their ballots.
Richard Borreca writes on politics on Sundays. Reach him at 808onpolitics@gmail.com.
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