A key Senate committee scuttled a plan to allow Hawaii residents to begin voting in state and local elections when they reach the age of 16 but is moving forward with proposals for automatic recounts in close races along with another plan for statewide voting by mail.

Senate Judiciary Chairman Karl Rhoads said “there is probably not the political will” to move forward with a proposed amendment to the Hawaii State Constitution to allow 16-year-olds to vote, and deferred action indefinitely Friday.

Senate Bill 4 was supported by a number of youths, their teachers and their mentors, who said 16-year-olds should be able to participate in elections that shape public policy on issues such as global warming that will affect their futures.

“Much of our state budget goes to education. Yet the people who were most impacted by this budget do not have the right to vote,” said John Bickel, president of Americans for Democratic Action Hawaii, in written testimony. “While we understand that not all young people should have the right to vote, by the age of 16, they often have intelligent opinions on public issues.”

Rhoads said he personally supports the idea of lowering the voting age, mostly because it would help young people to acquire the habit of voting early.

People under the age of 18 can drive and get married but are not allowed to buy cigarettes or alcohol, so “we’re all over the place on what we let minors do,” he said. “Society is kind of undecided about what the real age of maturity is.”

However, Rhoads said he was unsure there were enough votes on the committee to move the bill forward. “The big objection (by other lawmakers) is that 16-year-olds just aren’t mature enough to make those kinds of decisions,” said Rhoads (D, Downtown-Nuuanu-Liliha).

Automatic recounts

The Senate Judiciary Committee did move forward with Senate Bill 216, which would require an automatic recount in elections where the margin of victory for a candidate is 100 votes or less, or 0.5 percent or less of the votes cast in the race.

Those mandatory recounts would also apply to ballot questions and would have to be completed within 48 hours of the election, according to the bill.

The House Judiciary Committee on Friday advanced a similar bill, House Bill 428, which also requires automatic recounts when the margin of victory is 100 votes or less, or 0.5 percent of the votes cast.

The House committee is also proposing in House Bill 709 an amendment of the Hawaii State Constitution authorizing the Legislature to require election recounts. The House version of the recount bill would not take effect until the voters approve the constitutional amendment, according to House Judiciary Chairman Chris Lee.

Hawaii currently does not have an automatic-recount law, which was underscored by protests filed over two close races in the 2018 election.

The state Supreme Court rejected an election challenge filed by former state Rep. Matt LoPresti in his 116-vote loss to Republican Kurt Fevella for the state Senate seat representing Ewa Beach and Iroquois Point, although LoPresti has asked the court to reconsider that decision.

In another close race, the court tossed out results in the Honolulu City Council race between Councilman Trevor Ozawa and former state Rep. Tommy Waters. Ozawa received 22 votes more than Waters, but the court ruled election officials improperly counted absentee votes that arrived too late, and overturned the result.

A new mail-in election will be held in March and April to determine the winner in that Council race, but no recount was held in either the Senate or the Council race.

Mail-in ballots

On the perennial issue of mail-in ballots, Kauai is scheduled to shift to all-mail voting in the 2020 election, and election officials have told lawmakers it would save the state hundreds of thousands of dollars each election cycle if the entire state switched to mail-in balloting.

More than 60 percent of Hawaii voters already vote absentee, and Rhoads said more than half vote by mail, but lawmakers have repeatedly rejected bills to change over to all-mail voting statewide. Senate Bill 560, which was approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee, would establish all-mail balloting for the entire state in 2022.

The Senate recount and vote-by-mail bills now go to the Senate Ways and Means Committee for further consideration. The House recount bills will advance to the House Finance Committee for further review.