Voter apathy reaches record in Hawaii’s general election

Hawaii reached a record-low voter turnout for the general election as only 48.4% of the state’s voters bothered to cast ballots.

“Until this year the closest we’ve come to that was 2014, and that was 52.3%,” said Colin Moore, director of the University of Hawaii’s Public Policy Center. “That was the worst that it’s been until this year.”

The good news, Moore said, is that more voters cast ballots in this year’s general election — 417,215 — compared with 369,642 in 2014, although the overall percentage of eligible voters who actually voted was lower this time. “It’s bad, but not quite as bad as it looks,” Moore said.

Even with control of Congress at stake, Hawaii’s marquee races for congressional delegation seats, governor and lieutenant governor were all but over after the August party primary elections.

The ticket of Gov.-elect Josh Green and his lieutenant governor running mate, Sylvia Luke, ended up winning with the greatest margin in state history — or 62.3% of the votes, Green’s office said.

The lack of competitive races led to low voter turnout, which meant Republicans had fewer opportunities to sway independent and Democratic voters to their side.

Several factors contributed to lackluster races:

>> The Republican Party of Hawaii had four leadership changes in 2021.

>> Former Lt. Gov. James “Duke” Aiona mounted his third run for governor on the final day of eligibility with a woefully underfunded campaign that never attracted the financing needed to turn enough Democrats and independents, and with a running mate who had differences on subjects including abortion and gun control.

Heading into the Nov. 8 general election, Aiona and Lynn Finnegan, chair of the Republican Party of Hawaii, repeatedly told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser that they heard disillusionment about the status quo from voters they met on the campaign trail.

But that frustration failed to translate into enough votes for Republican candidates and may have contributed to the overall low voter turnout.

Although a record number of Republican candidates sought office, many were newcomers with little name recognition and new to fundraising.

“A combination of many things took place, including not enough time to fund-raise and get your message out,” Finnegan said. “Definitely, money was a big factor. Many of these (Democratic) folks had huge war chests before we could even start to fund-raise. And Josh Green had so much earned media during the time of the pandemic. People saw his face and his name over and over again.”

Even before the votes were counted this week, Republican leaders were already looking ahead to the 2024 election, when voters will pick America’s next president.

The 2020 presidential election between incumbent Donald Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden saw a modern-day record for voter turnout in Hawaii of 69.6%.

But if Hawaii voters continue to turn out in lackluster numbers, Finnegan still sees optimism.

Linda Lingle and Aiona won their first four-year term as governor and lieutenant governor in 2002 when only 57% of registered voters cast ballots and were reelected in 2006 when voter turnout dropped to 52.7%, according to the state Office of Elections.

The best general election voter turnout happened in 1959 — the year Hawaii became America’s 50th state — with 93.6% of 183,118 eligible voters casting ballots, or 171,383 total votes.

After that, voter participation began to fall, hovering between the low 50s and high 70s, with the Aloha State often leading the nation in voter apathy. In 2000, voter participation was 58.3%, but two decades later it zoomed back to 69.6% during the 2020 presidential race.

There was some hope that Hawaii’s first wide-scale effort at mail-in voting played a role in increasing voter interest in 2020. But it now seems more likely that apathy has returned because of few interesting races in a state dominated by Democrats, Moore said.

Out of the 417,215 votes in the general election, the overwhelming number — 400,527 — were cast by way of mail-in ballot. Only 16,688 voters cast ballots in person, a scant 1.9% of the total voter turnout.

“Mail-in ballots are no silver bullet,” Moore said. “Anyone who thought this would help voter turnout was wrong. We can’t make voting any easier here. It’s not a technology problem. It’s an enthusiasm problem.”

Moore saw few candidate sign-waiving efforts leading up to this year’s general election and none of significant size. “With the exception of the Maui mayor’s race, there was little excitement and no competitive race at the top of the ticket,” Moore said. “It was kind of a predetermined outcome. People weren’t excited, and they didn’t think there was much at stake, so we get low turnout.”

In some households, “I think there were people who were unaware there was an election,” Moore said. Mostly, people just thought, ‘There’s no point, this is a done deal, so why waste my time,’ which is depressing.”

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General election voter turnouts

1959 93.6%

1966/1968 87.4%

1978 74%

1996 67.9%

2000 58.3%

2014 52.3%

2020 69.6%

2022 48.4%

Source: State Office of Elections