Many mailed ballots in Hawaii’s primary election weren’t tallied due to missed deadline

More than 3,000 Hawaii voters suffered a pitfall — voting too late — in this year’s primary election.

County election officials report that 3,125 ballots cast by mail in the Aug. 13 contest didn’t count because they weren’t received in time.

Some Hawaii voters might still be getting used to the state’s 2-year-old voting system designed to have the vast majority of voting done by mail as a convenient way to boost participation in electing government representatives. But to a large degree this year, voters were left to gauge for themselves how much time they had to mail back ballots.

The state Office of Elections, the U.S. Postal Service and two of four county election offices refrained from promoting public guidance on how much time voters plausibly had to put their ballots in the mail so that ballots were received in time by county election officials.

This receipt deadline, a state law, is 7 p.m. on the last day of voting. Voters received ballots about 18 days before the primary election.

On Oahu, 2,201 votes didn’t get counted because mailed-in ballots arrived late. That was up 59% from 1,385 late ballots in the 2020 primary election, which represented the first time the state conducted mainly mail-in voting under a 2019 decision by the state Legislature.

Retired University of Hawaii political science professor Neal Milner said it would be helpful if election officials were more proactive in helping voters meet the mail-in deadline. But he also noted that voters are responsible and that the number of late ballots represented just under 1% of 340,159 votes counted. “I don’t see this as a huge problem,” he said.

Voters who may be flirting with a close call meeting the deadline have alternatives. One is to drop sealed ballots in one of about a dozen or more drop boxes in each county. The other alternative is voting in person ahead of or on the last day of voting.

Also available this year is a statewide free service called BallotTrax, which notifies voters when their ballot has been received.

BallotTrax users who don’t get a receipt confirmation can call for more information and vote in person if their ballot appears as if it will be late. The latter of any two ballots received from the same voter in such an instance would not count.

Duke Gonzales, a U.S. Postal Service spokesperson in Honolulu, said the agency will provide timing guidance for delivering ballots by mail to county election officials as proprietary customer information, but not to the general public. His advice to voters: “Don’t wait till the last minute.”

It typically takes two to three days to deliver a letter mailed between two people in the state, but Gonzales said the USPS doesn’t want this general metric applied to election ballots.

THE STATE Office of Elections, where voter awareness is part of its mission, put out a printed 2020 general election guide that included this advice, “Mail your signed ballot no later than October 27 to ensure it is received by the close of voting at 7:00 p.m. on Election Day (Nov. 3).” This year, the agency offers only this help on its website regarding the timing of mailing in ballots: “Be mindful of USPS delivery times to ensure it is received by the deadline.”

Nedielyn Bueno, a spokesperson for the agency, said past public recommendations with specific dates for mail time guidance in some cases ended up being less useful because delivery logistics can be fluid. For instance, she said USPS increased its recommended mailing timetable between the primary and general elections two years ago. Generally, Bueno said voters should mail in their ballots at least five days before election day.

On Oahu, the Elections Division of Honolulu’s Office of the City Clerk avoided giving voters guidance this year on how far ahead of the deadline they should mail back ballots. “Our recommendation is return your ballots early,” said spokesperson Doris Lam.

Hawaii County promoted timely action from voters on the Big Island by including a bright pink slip in every ballot packet that said USPS recommends mailing in ballots by Aug. 9, which was four weekdays before the primary election. County election officials also promoted this guidance in radio and TV ads.

“We do make very active efforts to keep that number (of late ballots) low,” said Jon Henricks, Hawaii County clerk. Hawaii County reported 211 late ballots, and did not have a comparable figure from the 2020 primary election. “We’d love to see that number go down,” Henricks said. “Even if it’s one voter, that’s disappointing.”

For Hawaii’s Nov. 8 general election, Hawaii County recommends mailing back ballots by Nov. 3.

All Hawaii voters should start to receive ballots in the mail for the general election on or around Oct. 21.

On Kauai, 175 ballots were received late by mail. Lyndon Yoshioka, the county’s election administrator, said no advice was given on when voters should return ballots by mail, but he said generally, “A week out is your best bet.”

Yoshioka also said that USPS adjusted its usual delivery practice just ahead of the primary election by manually diverting ballot envelopes so that they stayed on Kauai instead of getting sent to Honolulu with all regular mail for sorting and delivery.

MAUI COUNTY Clerk Kathy Kaohu said a similar adjustment was made by USPS on Lanai and Molokai for this year’s primary election, which helped deliver more ballots by the deadline.

Another adjustment made on election day in Maui County, by special request, was a later-than-normal collection of mail from postal boxes by USPS so that more ballots could be received by the county by the 7 p.m. deadline, Kaohu said.

As for publicity regarding when voters should mail in ballots, Kaohu said there was less this year than in 2020 for Maui County. The county’s advice is one week out, and Kaohu said the county promoted this mainly in some community and alternative media outlets for this year’s primary election.

There were 538 ballots received late in Maui County.

Kaohu said voters should vote early, and if they don’t then they should have an alternative plan that includes the option of depositing ballots in county drop boxes before 7 p.m. on election day. “That’s the one guarantee,” she said.