The Oahu businessman seeking to impeach Honolulu Prosecutor Keith Kaneshiro wants the 1,021 people who signed his petition to re-sign it using a different electronic platform.
Tracy Yoshimura said the state Office of Elections has indicated that additional information is required from petition signers in order to pass the certification process: namely date of birth and either a driver’s license number, state ID card number or the last four numbers of the individual’s Social Security number.
The original list of signatures was collected at change.org, but that platform could not provide space for the identity-related information, Yoshimura said. The new DocuSign electronic platform does so, he said.
DocuSign is “internationally recognized (and) legally accepted by courts, financial institutions and businesses,” Yoshimura said. As a result, “we are asking everyone who previously signed the petition to go to impeachkaneshiro.com to again sign the petition,” Yoshimura said.
The additional information will be kept confidential, he said.
An impeachment petition against an elected city official requires 500 names be submitted to the Office of the City Clerk. Just over 460 signatures had been gathered under the new petition as of Friday afternoon, Yoshimura said.
Yoshimura and his attorney, Keith Kiuchi, said they’ve had difficulty determining from the city what information is needed from each signer for their signatures to be valid. One city attorney said Yoshimura should wait for a judge to decide. As a result, they turned to the state for guidance, Yoshimura said.
A hearing on the case before Circuit Judge Jeffrey Crabtree is scheduled for April 30.
Yoshimura wants Kaneshiro out because he is under investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice, which has not disclosed any details of its inquiry. Yoshimura said the mere possibility Kaneshiro could be convicted of federal crimes may throw into question cases prosecuted under his authority.
Kaneshiro went on voluntary paid leave from his $170,712-a-year job on March 7, three weeks after state Attorney General Clare Connors filed her own petition asking the Hawaii Supreme Court to remove him.
