The first batch of mail-in ballots arrived Tuesday at the state Capitol and were fed into sorting machines on the floor of the state Senate as volunteer “official observers” monitored every step of the process, beginning with riding in vans with the ballots from the U.S. post office next to Daniel K. Inouye International Airport to the Capitol, and ending their duties only after the Nov. 5 general election, when hand counts will be conducted to verify machine tabulations.
In between, the ballots are locked in metal cages at the Capitol with the combination known only to five of the most senior official observers.
Not even state Elections Chief Scott Nago knows the combination.
The approximately 80 official observers are part of the overall contingent of 320 “counting center officials” who have volunteered for various jobs on Oahu this election year.
Janet Mason again has volunteered to monitor this year’s election as a member of the League of Women Voters’ Honolulu Chapter that’s dedicated to ensuring clean elections across the islands. She called Hawaii’s election system “perhaps the most modern, secure approach in the country. It’s safe and secure.”
Voters “should feel very confident in Hawaii’s election system,” Mason said.
Out of the 80 volunteers serving as official observers, about 20 are working for the first time, including approximately a dozen Republicans. Nearly all of the rookies want to see firsthand whether claims of election fraud on the mainland could be happening here, said Dennis Kam, who’s in charge of the observers.
Brett Kulbis, 62, who retired as a senior chief petty officer after serving aboard two Hawaii- based, fast-attack subs and later chaired the Honolulu Republican Party, had plenty of skepticism about Hawaii’s election process following former President Donald Trump’s 2020 loss to President Joe Biden, a defeat that Trump still refuses to acknowledge.
Trump’s loss triggered allegations of voter fraud across the country, followed by guilty verdicts, guilty pleas and indictments against election officials who refused to certify Biden’s victory in their jurisdictions, along with lawsuits and other ongoing legal action against other so-called election deniers.
Then there was the bloody assault on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, that was egged on by Trump to try to prevent Congress from certifying Biden’s election victory.
So in 2022, Kulbis volunteered as a Hawaii official observer.
“Following the craziness of 2020, I wanted to see for myself rather than listening to all the hearsay and conjecture,” he said.
Kulbis’ friends ask him, “Are they stuffing ballots? Are they being counted correctly?” he said.
His response: “It’s not happening here. There’s no shenanigans going on. It’s possible in other jurisdictions. But not in Hawaii.”
The questions, Kulbis said, come from friends “who consider themselves Republican.”
This year, Kulbis said he knows of at least 10 volunteer official observers who have been active in the Hawaii Republican Party, “and there may be more.”
Despite his firsthand observations from riding along with ballots and watching every other part of the Capitol ballot process, Kulbis still has doubts about the security of other aspects of Hawaii’s election system.
His father worked for the U.S. Postal Service and Kulbis questions whether every mail-in ballot can remain secure and accounted for among the volume and pace of postal operations. He also worries about the security of drop boxes, where mail-in ballots can be deposited across the islands.
Since Hawaii converted to mail-in voting — which includes prepaid return postage — voters overwhelmingly prefer the process compared to standing in line and voting in person, which remains an option.
Only 32.3% of registered voters actually cast ballots in the Aug. 10 primary election. But of the 271,345 people who did vote, a whopping 266,362 voted by mail. Only 4,983 people across the state voted in person.
Kulbis joined them Tuesday, casting his vote in person at Kapolei Hale before reporting for duty at the Capitol for the first day of processing.
“I don’t trust the drop boxes. I don’t trust the post office,” he said.
Former television journalist Bill Brennan volunteered as an official observer for the first time for the August primary election and returned to the Capitol for the general election.
He has since served in every observer role, including monitoring the opening of ballots in a secure room on the third floor of the Capitol where “ballot openers” unseal mail-in ballots from their envelopes and security sleeves before unfolding them and laying them flat in a pile to be boxed and taken downstairs by elevator to the Senate chamber, with observers like Brennan along every step of the way.
If one of the ballots or envelopes falls to the floor as it’s being opened, neither the person who opened it nor observers like Brennan are allowed to touch it.
Only a state elections official can pick it up off the floor and place it on a stack of other opened ballots.
The pace of processing every ballot moves too fast for anyone to take the time to actually read how people voted, and there’s no place in the room for volunteers to hide ballots they might disagree with, even if they wanted to.
“People are not walking in and out with boxes or bags,” said one of the senior official observers, Norman Kawamoto, a 77-year-old Air Force veteran who served in Thailand during the Vietnam War. “It’s a secure room.”
If the Capitol should need to be evacuated during the ballot opening and counting processes, it’s the job of five official observers, including Kawamoto, to stay behind and ensure that the ballots are locked in their metal cages before the observers can join others evacuating the building.
Brennan said, “There’s no way that Hawaii’s election can be anything but clean and fair.”
To all of the volunteers working this year’s election — and in all the previous elections — Brennan said, “the world needs more people like them. Those people are priceless.”
Each of the volunteers receives a stipend of $95 for the first day of ballot processing and then $35 for each additional shift before and after Nov. 5, said Auli‘i Tenn, section head of counting center operations for the state Office of Elections.
They receive one meal each shift, and on Tuesday they enjoyed sandwiches and chips.
Separate shifts of volunteers work during the day and night, Tenn said, “and we only go home when we’re pau.”
The volunteers receive no overtime or other benefits.
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