The state Elections Commission on Friday appointed three subcommittees to examine issues surrounding the 2014 primary election and the actions of the chief election officer, who faced heavy criticism over the decision to carry out two elections in a tropical-storm ravaged district on Hawaii island and the late discovery of about 800 mail-in ballots on Maui.
William Marston, commission chairman, said it was too early to decide anything at this point.
"It’s been a tough day — a lot of emotion in this room," Marston said after the hearing. "I hope we get some aloha going forward, but the commission feels that to be entirely fair we need to investigate these further before any decisions are made or any judgments are made."
The three subcommittees will examine decisions made by Chief Election Officer Scott Nago; the actions of Hawaii island officials that led to the opening of all but two precincts in Puna on primary day with a subsequent one-day makeup election for only those two affected precincts on the following Friday; and the events on Maui surrounding the discovery of about 800 absentee mail-in ballots days after polls had closed.
Subcommittees are to report back at the commission’s next meeting scheduled Oct. 3.
Nago said his office would cooperate with the investigation while doing everything it can to prepare for the Nov. 4 general election.
"We’re just going to participate, make sure we give them all of the information we can," Nago said.
Nago’s office was tasked with carrying out the election under extraordinary circumstances, as back-to-back tropical storms threatened the state right as the Aug. 9 primary approached. Iselle made landfall in the Puna district on the Friday before the primary, toppling trees, blocking roads and cutting power to thousands of residents in the sprawling community.
The day before the primary, after consultation with the governor’s office, attorney general, state Civil Defense and Hawaii County officials, Nago announced that two polling sites — at Hawaiian Paradise Community Center and Keonepoko Elementary School — would be closed and voters would be able to cast absentee ballots by mail. Signs posted at precincts carried the same message.
Two other precincts in the Pahoa area of the district opened.
On primary election day, Nago said he later learned more trees had fallen, potentially blocking some voters from reaching polling sites.
Nago explained that while his office has the power to postpone an election for up to 21 days or consolidate precincts in the event of a natural disaster, those decisions must be made beforehand. Once the polls open, only the governor has the authority to take any action — such as extending voting hours as he did in 2012 when precincts ran out of ballots — to accommodate additional voters.
"It was a long day. I don’t know why the governor didn’t take action," Nago said after the hearing.
On Aug. 11, the Monday after the primary, Nago said he was on another conference call in which state officials informed him that all roads in the affected polling precincts were open. At that point, the decision was made to have the election at the soonest possible time.
Keonepoko was not available until Friday, Aug. 15, a state holiday, and calls to Hawaiian Paradise Community Center went unanswered, so the decision was made to have a single poll site open on the state holiday.
Critics said the information on the makeup vote was inconsistent and officials used unreliable means to inform potential voters — fliers posted in the community or sent home with schoolchildren. Most had no power and little access to television news, the Internet or newspapers.
On the day of the makeup vote, dozens of people from the Pahoa precincts who were unable to vote on election day showed up at the Puna precinct at Keonepoko and were turned away.
The commission on Friday heard testimony from about a dozen people, many of whom said they were speaking on behalf of residents in the affected areas, who voiced similar complaints of not being able to cast ballots.
State Sen. Russell Ruderman (D, Puna) who had called elections officials on the day of the primary to report that some residents were still trapped in their homes and could not get to polling sites, said elections officials on Oahu did not seem to understand the extent of the problems on Hawaii island.
Others said even if the roads were open, the fear of theft and looting — many were without power, water and ice — was real and many did not want to leave their homes. Many were more concerned with necessities such as food and water, not whether they would vote.
Janet Mason, legislative chairwoman of the League of Women Voters, was among those who questioned why the vote could not be postponed for up to two weeks if allowed under state law.
Ruderman suggested either having all four precincts re-vote, reopen the two precincts that had opened on election day, or just allow voting from any resident who signs an affidavit stipulating that he or she was physically unable to participate on primary election day because of storm-related damage.
"I don’t have the authority under law to do that," Nago said. "It would have to be the governor … or it would have to be somebody else, but I don’t have the authority to do that."
Still others, including state Sen. Sam Slom (R, Diamond Head-Kahala-Hawaii Kai), called for Nago to be fired. Citing the 2012 ballot shortages that led to long lines and frustrated voters, Slom criticized the commission for not taking any previous disciplinary action.
"How many mistakes and how many errors are we going to allow?" Slom said. "We have procedures in place, but they haven’t been enforced."
Nago had no comment on those who called for his ouster.
A separate issue was the discovery of about 800 mail-in ballots on Maui that were uncovered during a routine audit that takes place after every election.
A vendor mistakenly scanned a memory card with ballots from Hana twice, Nago said. In "an abundance of caution," that vendor reset the tabulation machine to scan all cards again, at which point, a card with the 800 mail-in ballots was inadvertently left out.
Nago said the audit worked as it should in catching the error, but in hindsight he would have conducted the audit earlier and released the information sooner. The ballots were found Aug. 13, and a decision was made to announce the finding with the results of the Aug. 15 makeup election in Puna.
Commissioner Danny Young questioned Nago on steps being taken to ensure that such mistakes are not repeated. While Nago said it is his job to review procedures and hold those responsible accountable, Young urged the office to take whatever additional steps are necessary to ensure there no recurrence of the issue.
"If it was a vendor’s error and you didn’t control the vendor — you need to assign somebody to control your vendor," Young said. "Because ultimately it comes back on you.
"You need to control the vendor so it doesn’t happen again."
Nago said after the hearing that looking ahead, the audit would be conducted on the night of the general election, with additional steps taken, such as an additional checklist for vendors to use in future situations where cards have to be re-scanned.
Elections officials noted Friday that the final results were updated again this past Wednesday to reflect provisional ballots and other scattered ballots uncovered in follow-up audits since the Aug. 15 election. In the Democratic U.S. Senate primary, the final tally showed U.S. Sen. Brian Schatz with a 1,782-vote margin over U.S. Rep. Colleen Hanabusa, up from 1,769 votes after Aug. 15.
