Hawaii residents stand in rain, long lines, to cast ballots
CRAIG T. KOJIMA / CKOJIMA@STARADVERTISER.COM
Olivia Yoshida,left, and Isabella Bautista, elections volunteers, collected ballots from motorists on King Street this morning.
NINA WU/NWU@STARADVERTISER.COM
Oahu residents stood in a long line, some for hours, in the rain, to get to the voter service center at Honolulu Hale today. The line stretched all the way back to the Frank Fasi Municipal Buildling.
NINA WU/NWU@STARADVERTISER.COM
Oahu residents stood in a long line, some for hours, in the rain, to get to the voter service center at Honolulu Hale today. The line stretched all the way back to the Frank Fasi Municipal Buildling.
CRAIG T. KOJIMA / CKOJIMA@STARADVERTISER.COM
Voters line up at Honolulu Hale to cast their ballots after waiting in the rain.
CRAIG T. KOJIMA / CKOJIMA@STARADVERTISER.COM
Voters line up at Honolulu Hale to cast their ballots after waiting in the rain.
Stay updated on Hawaii and national elections coverageHundreds of residents stood in the rain, some waiting for hours since early this morning, to get into Oahu’s voter centers in Honolulu and Kapolei.
Election officials said residents waited in line as much as an hour before voter centers opened 7 a.m. at Honolulu Hale and Kapolei Hale. At Honolulu Hale, the line wound down the walkway to the Frank Fasi Municipal Building, and back around.
The average wait time by noon was at about three hours, according to Honolulu Election Administrator Rex Quidilla, which remained at that level into the afternoon.
State and city election officials had warned residents to expect long lines of people exercising their right to vote in person — and to register to vote — today, on Election Day.
Overall, however, people were waiting patiently to get in, even if they were standing for hours in the rain. Some had umbrellas, and some did not. Some brought their kids with them.
Quidilla described the overall day as peaceful.
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“It’s been mostly incident-free,” he said. “There’s been a couple cases of electioneering — in other words, campaigning within the 200-feet zone, but nothing persistent. Once we told individuals to cease, they stopped and moved out of the 200-foot zone.”
At Honolulu Hale, officials reconfigured the line to the back side, away from South King Street, for safety, according to Quidilla. Many entered through a short tunnel that had been put up in preparation for Honolulu City Lights.
On S. King Street, meanwhile, drivers were able to hand off their ballots to several workers lining the street before Honolulu Hale in a drive-thru configuration.
As of about 4:30 p.m., Quidilla estimated returns, including mail-in ballots and the turnout at voter centers was “north of 300,000.”
There were many in line who wanted to vote in person rather than by mail or by dropping their ballot in a dropbox, while others had registration issues.
Many of the residents in line were also registering to vote for the first time, according to Quidilla, or needed to update their voter registrations.
His advice?
“Be patient,” he said. “We have trained our workers to most efficiently process voters. They’re going as quick as they can. We don’t want to rush it too much because we don’t want to make errors. We will serve every eligible voter in line.”
By state law, anyone eligible to vote who is in line before the scheduled 7 p.m. close of island voting locations must be allowed to vote.
The lines at Honolulu and Kapolei were still long at the 7 p.m. cutoff time, according to Quidilla.
Hawaii Elections Chief Scott Nago expected the last vote to be cast after 11 p.m. which was what happened in 2020, based on the long lines reported across the state.
