No new winners have been declared in Hawaii’s primary election in August as the result of several legal challenges filed by losing candidates and a handful of voters.
The Hawaii Supreme Court on Tuesday dismissed three such cases after dismissing three other election challenges a week earlier. The three most recent dismissals included one challenge by BJ Penn, who finished second in the Republican race for governor, and represented the last election complaint cases decided.
All the decisions were based on plaintiffs failing to present any evidence that election outcomes would be different even if their claims were true.
“A plaintiff challenging a primary election must show that he or she has actual information of mistakes or errors sufficient to change the election result,” five justices wrote in unanimous opinions in all six cases, citing prior case law.
In two of the dismissal orders, justices quoted more case law that also said, “For example, it is not sufficient that a plaintiff points to a ‘poorly run and inadequately supervised election process’ that shows ‘room for abuse’ or ‘possibilities of fraud.’”
One claim among many made by Penn alleged that inadequate security measures at ballot drop boxes and counting centers possibly discouraged voters from voting and contributed to fraud and inaccurate reporting.
The retired mixed martial arts fighting champion from Hilo received 19,817 votes and was beaten by former Lt. Gov. James “Duke” Aiona, who amassed 37,608 votes, according to election results.
In the closest race subject to an election challenge, Cherie Oquendo contested the outcome in which she received five fewer votes than Tiana Wilbur, who won a Republican primary for state House District 45, covering Waianae and Makaha.
Like Penn, Oquendo claimed that many things were wrong with the election, including an allegation that there were 34,559 Oahu ballots received the day after the Aug. 13 election that could have counted depending on whether the receipt of such ballots got “recorded” in Greenwich Mean Time, which is 10 hours ahead of Hawaii time.
The elections Division of Honolulu’s Office of the City Clerk reported that 2,201 ballots arrived late. Oquendo said in her complaint that her information was from a “credit data file” received from the office.
The third case dismissed Tuesday was filed by 70 voters on Kauai, led by construction company owner Ralph Cushnie, who contended that county election officials failed to properly audit vote results for Kauai, in part by not allowing volunteer observers to randomly select ballots for audit.
Previously, Hawaii’s high court dismissed election challenge complaints from Gary Cordery, Richard Kim and Adriel Lam.
Cordery finished third among 10 Republicans running for governor. Kim finished fifth among seven Democratic gubernatorial contenders. Lam lost a Republican primary race for the state Senate District 24 seat, covering parts of Kailua and Kaneohe, by 39 votes.
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