Did you vote yet?
Yes, voters don’t get a chance to walk into voting booths until Aug. 13, but already county officials are sending out primary election ballots to overseas voters.
Hawaii voters, according to state elections officials, will be getting absentee ballots in the middle of the month.
Hawaii County is expected to start mailing out absentee ballots on July 19 with the other counties following the next day, according to Nedielyn Bueno, state voter services spokeswoman.
Elections officials are estimating more than 170,000 voters will vote absentee and mail in their ballot.
Two years ago, in the primary election, 163,600 or 56.5 percent of those who voted, did so with a mailed-in absentee ballot.
Absentee ballots and vote by mail are becoming the new, more popular way to vote.
California voting officials say that more than half of their voters have switched over to the permanent absentee system, similar to the one in Hawaii.
“A majority (of voters) vote by mail. Ballots go out four weeks before the election, so it’s not really election day, it’s election month,” Dan Newman, a San Francisco-based Democratic strategist who has worked for Gov. Jerry Brown, said in the California political blog, Morning Consult.
That new hurry-up-and-vote phenomenon has its own fallout for local races in Hawaii.
“Now candidates have to be ready to run for four or five weeks before election day,” said legislative veteran Sen. Will Espero.
The Ewa Beach Democrat said campaigners now have to recognize that their message must last for that entire campaign period, meaning that the usual last-minute flurry of campaign mailers has to be extended for an entire month.
That changes campaign strategy. Campaign consultants advise that the time-honored, last-minute slur or dirty campaign attack has less impact because many voters have already mailed in their ballots.
Former U.S. Rep. Colleen Hanabusa, who is running for her old Congressional District 1 seat, said the popularity of absentee voting means it is like the polls are open for several weeks.
“Those with a contested primary and those who may not have name recognition have to coordinate a mailer of their own to go at the same time that ballots drop,” Hanabusa said.
While absentee voting forces politician to give more thought to their campaign, Espero added that it is a boon to voters, because it gives them more time to examine a candidate’s views and discuss the vote with family and friends.
“Our voters are going to absentee voting because of the convenience of mail-in voting, they like it a lot,” Espero said.
Bills to move Hawaii to all vote-by-mail have failed to pass in the last three legislative sessions, even though they have had strong support from the state Office of Elections.
State officials have argued that mail ballots would save the state money; so far, legislators have been unable to make the jump.
“Absentee voting is the way to go,” Espero said. “I don’t understand why this doesn’t pass.”
Richard Borreca writes on politics on Sundays, Tuesdays and Fridays. Reach him at rborreca@staradvertiser.com.
