What can you say about an election that nobody cared about?

Yes, for those tracking elections and backing candidates, Campaign 2014 was fascinating — but for most people in Hawaii, it was not even a big yawn.

Hawaii plunged to establish its own new personal worst voter turnout record. Just 52.3 percent of registered voters voted.

The national ratings will come later, but expect the state to be exploring the nadir of voting.

Several things jump out. First the vote tally, and then new questions about the Republican Party.

David Ige’s solid, disciplined campaign for governor paid off and he is now governor-elect and will be sworn in on Dec. 1.

But, Ige did it with 181,065 votes. That comes out to about 13 percent of Hawaii’s entire resident population deciding that he will run the state for the next four, and possibly eight, years.

Hawaii has one disengaged electorate. In 1992, 1994, 1996, 1998, 2000, 2002, 2004, 2008, 2010 and 2012, more people, not a larger percentage, but more people voted in those 10 years than voted for the winning candidate in this general election.

If you want more people in Hawaii to vote, the path is found in the election numbers.

This is the first general election in Hawaii’s history in which more people voted by absentee than by walking into a precinct on Election Day.

It was 26.7 percent absentee and 25.5 percent walk-in.

Almost the entire absentee vote was done by mail.

For those on Oahu who got a mail ballot, nearly 78 percent mailed the ballots back.

So if left alone, only about half of Hawaii voters will bother to vote. Hand them a ballot and three-quarters of them will vote it.

Back in 2010, the state held a special election to fill the rest of then-U.S. Rep. Neil Abercrombie’s term. It was a purely mail-in-ballot election. The turnout was 54 percent, so even in an election for just one position, U.S. Congress, more than half will vote.

Mail-in voters are apparently just like other voters because the mail-in ballots did not tip the election one way or another since mostly incumbents won — so going to an only mail-in system should not threaten incumbents. But such a switch would be something new, and that always worries the Legislature, which would have to approve changes to the voting laws.

The second big takeaway from Tuesday’s vote is a question of what will be the fate of the Hawaii GOP. As much as the mainland glows red, Hawaii goes deep blue.

The Associated Press reports that the GOP controls 28 state legislatures and 32 governorships, the most in a century, but Hawaii still has fewer than 10 Republicans in the Legislature.

More worrisome to the local GOP is the repeated rejection of its two strongest candidates: former U.S. Rep. Charles Djou and former Lt. Gov. James "Duke" Aiona.

On election night, Debbie Ng, a close family friend of the Aionas who teaches at Likelike Elementary with Aiona’s sister, was saying she could not understand it.

"He has charisma, he has this love and he is just such a comfortable, real person," said Ng, who described herself as a lifelong Republican from a GOP family.

"I thought if we all stood together, we could make a difference," she said as the first returns announced Aiona was trailing.

A Republican in a major race is likely to get at least 25 percent of the vote. Former legislator Cam Cavasso has run underfunded, mostly impossible-to-win Senate campaigns against the late Democratic icon U.S. Sen. Daniel K. Inouye. Cavasso would get 25 percent. This election he ran against U.S. Sen. Brian Schatz and still got a little more than 25 percent.

In comparison, Aiona pulled just under 37 percent of the state voter base, so there is little difference between the default GOP vote and what Aiona could win.

Essentially this election puts the Hawaii GOP at ground zero.

Richard Borreca writes on politics on Sundays, Tuesdays and Fridays. Reach him at rborreca@staradvertiser.com.