Because of early voting, Hawaii’s Election Day is actually 22 days long.

On Oahu, ballots should start arriving today. Voters must mail back ballots before the election, although they can actually walk them into the polls on the day of the election.

If voters continue to follow the trend of the last two elections, as many as half of Hawaii’s voters will have mailed in their ballots before the Nov. 6 general election.

A combination of the "no excuse needed" absentee ballot and the ability of voters to designate themselves as permanent absentee voters means voting by mail is becoming what half of Hawaii voters do.

In the August primary election, 48 percent of voters dropped their ballots in the mail. In the 2010 general election it was 42 percent, and back in 2008 it was 38 percent.

Political scientists and campaign strategists constantly sift the returns looking for patterns and ways to predict the early voter’s behavior.

So far there is very little to separate the early and late voter. Early voting appears to be more of a convenience to voters than a boon for politicians.

Now politicians must devise a campaign for the early or absentee voter and another one for the Nov. 6 walk-in voter, meaning the successful political campaign must peak twice.

Neal Milner, University of Hawaii political scientist, says that early or absentee voters are likely to be those who have already made up their minds and are therefore likely to be either strong Democrats or Republicans.

What tactical advantage that gives is not clear. Paul Gronke, head of the Early Voting Information Center at Reed College in Portland, Ore., says the early votes may just be votes that a candidate would have gotten anyway.

"If you dominate the early vote, it may indicate that your supporters are more excited and that your campaign mobilization effort is superior. Or it may indicate that you have harvested more of your votes early, and that your opponent will harvest more Election Day votes," said Gronke in answer to reporters’ questions on his Web page.

Milner notes that Pacific Resource Partners, the pro-rail Carpenters Union and contractors group, has started mailing out anti-Ben Cayetano cards attempting to link the liberal, Democratic former governor with the Republican Party.

"This may be what is behind what looks like a last-ditch attempt to influence loyal Democrats," Milner said.

The thinking is to hammer home an anti-Cayetano message to those who are already fairly attentive to voting.

What is not known is whether or not these cards are going to people who would have already voted for former acting Mayor Kirk Caldwell, who is running a campaign based in his own close association to the state Democratic Party.

If the early or absentee voter trend hurts any candidates, Milner says, it probably would be those who are already trailing in campaigns.

"It will stop some of the last-minute mobilization process that a trailing candidate can put up," Milner says.

That mail-in ballot should be insurance against the last-minute smear campaign — although in the case of the PRP pro-rail group, it could be that October is just the start of a month-long smear campaign.

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Richard Borreca writes on politics on Sundays, Tuesdays and Fridays. Reach him at rborreca@staradvertiser.com.