In the midst of the primary election furor — all the excitement over Tulsi-Mufi and Honolulu rail — is the sober fact that voter turnout was stunningly low.

It is time to rethink our election process and send every registered voter a ballot by mail.

There are certainly issues with this, but none is insurmountable. Significant numbers of Hawaii voters are doing mail voting already, and it’s hardly an innovative idea.

The states of Oregon and Washington do all-mail elections, and other states are considering them. (While it tends to improve turnout, mail voting is no absolute guarantee of high turnout — Oregon this year had a 39 percent primary turnout.)

In Hawaii this year, the total statewide turnout was an appalling 42.3 percent.

Think that’s bad?

Four years ago, the statewide primary statewide turnout was just 36.9 percent.

If former Speaker of the House Thomas "Tip" O’Neill was right in saying that "all politics is local," then the lack of significant contested primary races on Maui and Kauai this year may help explain low turnout there. But islandwide contested mayoral battles on Oahu and Hawaii would argue for better voting numbers on those islands than we have seen.

In this past Saturday’s primary election, Kauai, traditionally Hawaii’s statewide leader in turnout, dropped for the first time in total turnout below 40 percent. On the Garden Island, more people voted absentee than showed up at the polls on Saturday.

Maui’s turnout was 30.6 percent. Hawaii Island, with a vibrant mayoral battle, could only muster 43.6 percent, most of whom voted absentee. Honolulu’s rail-driven frenzy generated just 44.2 percent turnout.

Key decisions about the future of our democracy are being made by only a quarter of our residents.

Make no mistake. The turnout will go up significantly in this year’s general election. It always does in presidential election years. But even then, only two out of three registered voters will vote and fewer than half the registered voters will show up at the polling places.

Is mail voting a panacea? No, but it can help, and has resulted in somewhat better voter participation in other areas, although not large increases in participation.

Mailed ballots allow voters to consider their options in the privacy of their homes, and to review at leisure complex ballot issues like initiatives and charter amendments.

Furthermore, all-mail voting is a cost-effective means of balloting, and mail elections are much easier to conduct.

With all-mail elections, we wouldn’t have the biennial crisis of a lack of poll workers, the ballot-laden vans racing in the dark across islands on election night, or the "unforeseen technical and operational problems" that resulted in half the polling places on the Big Island opening late this year.