Based on a procedural voice vote Thursday, rail’s controversial bailout bill appears poised to easily pass the House today.

Ahead of that vote — the latest one in a weeklong special session on rail — eight of the 45 House members present Thursday registered their dissent against Senate Bill 4. Since it was a voice vote, there wasn’t a complete tally afterward. But the $2.4 billion funding package, which aims to rescue Oahu’s cash-strapped transit project, appeared to have ample support in the chamber.

Rep. Gene Ward (R, ­Kalama Valley-Queen’s Gate-­Hawaii Kai) said House members had been prohibited from adding amendments at this point in the session and called the move unfair.

“It’s a done deal, it’s locked and loaded, and you’re not going to touch it because tomorrow we’re going to send the whole thing to wrap it up,” Ward said on the floor to his colleagues.

Ward’s fellow House Republican, Rep. Cynthia Thielen (R, Kailua-Kaneohe Bay), expressed similar frustrations and called on lawmakers to hold off on a decision.

“I don’t want to enable the city to continue with its project that has just gone out of control,” Thielen said Thursday. “We have the opportunity to force the city, the Council members, the mayor and HART to rethink what it is doing.”

Nonetheless, House leadership remains confident it has the votes to pass the rail spending deal. In May the chamber passed a similar measure 45-6 in the closing days of this year’s regular session, but the Senate produced a different rail bill so that effort died.

Rep. Joy San Buenaventura (D, Pahoa-Kalapana) said Thursday that she supports SB 4 with reservations. She called the proposal a step “toward tax equity” that doesn’t rely as heavily on the general excise tax so it won’t burden as heavily the “neighbor island poor.”

San Buenaventura added that she had calculated a $150 neighbor island grocery bill to include some $13 of Oahu-based excise tax. “That’s four gallons of gas that the poor in Puna could save when we move this taxation … to a tourist tax,” she said, referring to the bill’s proposed 1-percentage-point increase statewide on the hotel room tax for the next 13 years.

Voting against SB 4 Thursday along with Thielen and Ward were Reps. Tom Brower (D, Waikiki-Ala Moana-Kakaako), Isaac Choy (D, Manoa-Punahou-Moiliili), Nicole Lowen (D, Holualoa-Kailua-­Kona-Honokohau), Sean Quinlan (D, Waialua-­Kahuku-­Waiahole), Chris Todd (D, Hilo-Waiakea-­Keaukaha) and Andria Tupola (R, ­Kalaeloa- Ko Olina-Maili).

The House takes up SB 4 again on final reading today. If passed without amendments, the deal that aims to keep Honolulu’s 20-mile, 21-station elevated rail project afloat then goes to Gov. David Ige for final passage.