Hawaii’s voters will soon be shuffling off to the November election with just a few new defining races and little to enliven the fall competition.

If you were to sum up this election year locally, it is “same old, same old.”

Is that good? Of course not. But also not surprising.

To start, there were few challenging races in the primary election, meaning that there were even fewer choices for votes in the Nov. 5 general election.

The end result is that shrinking numbers of races mean you have less candidates, less competition and less choice.

Even with the state elections office mailing all registered voters a ballot, only 271,345 voted in the statewide primary election. Come on now: Without having Gov. Josh Green come to your door and personally hand you a ballot, how much easier do you want voting to be?

The other side of the equation is that when the numbers shrink that much, every vote becomes so much more potent.

Look at the race for the state House in the 25th District. This was the race between Speaker of the House Scott Saiki and challenger Kim Coco Iwamoto. This was the third time she ran against Saiki and finally, persistence paid off.

Iwamoto won by 256 votes. The Office of Elections says that there were 145 blank votes, and two voters voted for both candidates, spoiling their ballot.

The number to remember is 32. That was the percentage for total primary vote turnout.

When the base number is that small, every vote counts for so much more.

If you are sent to buy 50 dozen eggs, not to worry if you drop three; but if you are supposed to buy five eggs and two are cracked, you are in trouble.

That is why candidates come personally to your house — not to visit, but to beg. There are so few of you who vote so every ballot counts for much more.

The unions and the nonprofits that rely on state money appreciate those odds and they know the value of each vote because just a few can get their candidate elected, or their enemy defeated, says political analyst and University of Hawaii Professor Colin Moore.

“There is a tendency to blame the electorate when the vote total is low,” Moore said in an interview. That may not be fair, he added.

Nonprofits that need support and unions that want to hold their influence know that voting matters and they will spend the money to organize and get out the vote.

What is needed is a bigger pot, more candidates running for more races.

Moore agrees, saying that to increase the battle more candidates are needed in the race. One way to do that is by making it easier to run for office.

“We need to find ways to increase the competition,” Moore said, adding that public financing of elections would encourage more candidates for office.

The thinking is that more candidates brings more competition, bringing more new ideas and more chances for change. And that’s the real way to end “same old, same old.”

Richard Borreca writes on politics on Sundays. Reach him at 808onpolitics@gmail.com.