A number of congressional, legislative and City Council races are on the ballot, but if a spot check on early voting at Honolulu Hale is any indication, it’s the presidential race first and foremost on the minds of many Hawaii voters.
Jessica Davis, a resident of Queen Emma Gardens on the edge of downtown Honolulu, arrived Friday afternoon with her 9-month-old baby to cast an early vote for the next president of the United States.
“I think the whole thing has been so ugly,” she said of the bruising battle between Democrat Hillary Clinton and Republican Donald Trump. “Now that I voted and I feel that I have done my duty, I don’t have to listen to it anymore.”
For other residents, the bitterness of this year’s presidential election may be keeping them home.
Recent get-out-the-vote campaigns and efforts to make it easier to vote appear to have helped with Hawaii’s voter registration numbers, which climbed 6 percent between 2012 and 2016, according to the state Office of Elections. But early voting numbers suggest that the number of people who actually cast votes this year will be about the same as in 2012.
“What we are seeing is the same amount of people,” said Scott Nago, the state’s chief election officer. “But the registration is bigger, so the percentage (of those voting) is going to be lower.”
For the first time this year, the Office of Elections allowed residents to register to vote right up until the last day of early walk-in voting, which ended Saturday. In prior years, residents had to be registered 30 days in advance of an election.
As of last year, residents were also able to use the state’s new online system to register, update their voter registration and request a mail-in ballot.
Still, early walk-in voting numbers are about flat, compared to the last presidential race. About 32,500 people had cast ballots as of Thursday, Nago said, about 100 more than at this time in 2012.
He said early walk-in voting data is a good indication of what the overall voter turnout will be.
However, it’s possible that an increase in the number of people voting by mail will boost overall turnout rates. For the City and County of Honolulu, the number of residents requesting mail-in ballots between 2008 and 2016 jumped by 77 percent to about 153,000 ballots, said Chad Kadota, the city’s elections administrator.
Statewide, election officials had mailed out 225,116 ballots and received 137,407 back as of Thursday, according to the Office of Elections.
Hawaii has had one of the worst voter turnout rates in the country, sparking local efforts to increase voter participation. Last year, the Honolulu chapter of the NAACP launched a campaign to increase voter turnout in recognition of the 50th anniversary of the federal Voting Rights Act.
Local NAACP President Alphonso Braggs said his organization had been doing outreach on college campuses, in churches and in community organizations. On Saturday, participants were at locations throughout Oahu, waving signs that urged people to vote.
But Braggs said that the negativity of this year’s election season could be undermining efforts.
“If you look at this 2016 campaign, from the local all the way to the president, from City Hall all the way to the White House, it has been more focused on individuals and how they can demean and devalue and denigrate the opponent, rather than address substantive issues,” Braggs said.
Ultimately, he said that some voters may be turned off by their choice of candidates.
“Unfortunately, I believe that far too many of the main groups, the major voting blocs, are somewhat despondent with the choices that they have,” Braggs said. “And they have allowed their unhappy choices to overshadow their civic responsibility. And so there is a presumption that folks are just not interested in the outcome.”
In addition to the race for president, there are three congressional races this year. U.S. Sen. Brian Schatz is facing Republican challenger John Carroll, and U.S. Rep. Tulsi Gabbard is being challenged by Republican Angela Kaaihue. The Democratic incumbents are expected to achieve easy victories.
There is also an open race to fill the seat of U.S. Rep. Mark Takai, who died earlier this year from cancer. Former U.S. Rep. Colleen Hanabusa is widely expected to win that race.
There are more than three dozen races in the state Legislature, including a competitive race between Sen. Sam Slom, the lone Republican in the Senate, and Democrat Stanley Chang. If Chang, a former Honolulu city councilman, unseats Slom this year, Hawaii could become the only state in the nation where the entire state Senate is Democratic.
Honolulu Mayor Kirk Caldwell is facing a tight race against former U.S. Rep. Charles Djou, and there are a smattering of council races throughout the counties.
Former Gov. John Waihee said that part of the problem with Hawaii’s lackluster voter turnout this year is that voters are really keyed into only two races: the presidential and Honolulu mayoral races.
“The rest of the races, most people believe have already been decided. … So when people feel things are decided, they don’t come out and vote,” he said.
Waihee also said that the negativity of the presidential and mayoral races is likely depressing turnout.
“In a sense, both the Democrats and Republicans want to increase voter turnout, but only for their candidates,” he said. “So we have this very paradoxical phenomenon where there is this big push for supporters to come out, but at the same time the election is being run in a very negative manner that actually depresses voter turnout.”
By the time voters fan out to voting booths throughout the islands on Election Day, about half of all ballots in the state will likely have already been cast and there is little doubt that Hawaii will overwhelmingly go to Clinton. But it’s not expected to matter, noted former Gov. Ben Cayetano. National news organizations will likely have already called the race before all of Hawaii’s polls close and local returns start pouring in — a situation that probably doesn’t help voter turnout.
“I think from Hawaii’s point of view, we pretty much know that Hillary is going to win this state. This is a blue state,” Cayetano said. “We also realize that by the time we get to vote, we will already know the results of the election.”
