What did you think of the proposed City Charter amendments?
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B. Took the time to vet most/all (582 Votes)
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A. Too complicated; I mostly guessed (377 Votes)
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C. Didn’t vote (34 Votes)
This is not a scientific poll — results reflect only the opinions of those voting.
25 responses to “What did you think of the proposed City Charter amendments?”
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We need to have a serious discussion about how our city charter is amended. There were tens of thousands of blank votes on several of the questions, including 14% on the housekeeping question.
Educare me, whats the issue with blank votes?
In the case of the charter amendments, I think it means people did not understand the question or its consequences.
No, Im speaking about blank ballots, do they count as a Yes or No. Or do they just don’t count?
Never mind. Saw the answer in the next comment. Thanks anyway!
Blank votes count as a no. To pass requires a majority of the voters.
Wiliki, blank votes on charter amendment questions are just blank — they do not equate to a “no.” That is different than state questions, in which case a blank vote acts as “no.”
That’s not what the papers say…
Wiliki, I can’t help what the papers say. Maybe you misunderstood.
They count as a NO vote.
The devil is in the details. Need to simplify the language.
Howard Dicus did an interview and the person he spoke with said on the City Charter, a blank vote is a blank vote, unlike other times when a blank vote is counted as a no. Hopefully some of the Charter Amendments can be reversed. Some of those decisions were just wrong. The idea is to remove Politics from the system not increase them. Especially when you have a one party monarchy with no check and balance and no need listen anyone but themselves. Life in these islands can only get worse even if we thought wasn’t possible it may come to pass.
Agreed. They will be difficult to change. Just look at rail/HART — while there were proposals to remove it, those questions were not on the ballot. HART was, however, specifically exempted from the regular reviews that other boards are now subject to.
Nope… news media has clearly stated that blank vote is a no vote. The system IS working.
Blank votes only act as “no” for state constitutional questions. For county questions, they are just blank and do not impact yes or no votes.
I can’t speak for everyone but I was encouraged that many people I was listening to were taking time to read the proposals and realized that they had multiple clauses. Most people I know read them critically and voted with an informed understanding.
If that was the case, I think there would have been more “No” votes.
Agreed. And if they understood the potential change, I think #10 would have passed.
For me, studied all the proposals and voted “Yes” on #3 and “No” on all the rest.
There should never, ever again be that many proposed amendments on one ballot. The lines at the polling place were ridiculous and clearly were a result of people mulling over those amendments. Even though I reviewed in advance and came prepared with my checklist to speed things along, just having to fill in 20 rectangular boxes correctly took forever! If one were suspiciously inclined, it could look like an attempt to confuse and overwhelm the average voter.
You nailed it!
I did mine at home, but filling in the 20 items took less than two minutes.
I only voted no on two items and filled in those first. The rest I voted yes on. And then took about half a minute to go through the list one by one to make sure I did it correctly.
People usually vote on the spur of the moment when they vote at the ballot place. This is probably why Trump got elected.
Too many people didn’t make their decisions ahead of time and then decided they had to go in to cast their ballot.
They just decided to go to vote if they had the time and then decide who to vote for.
Blank votes on charter amendment questions do not county. The question came up on Maui in 2012. Their corporation counsel confirmed that blank or spoiled ballots do not count for Honolulu amendments. See page 3 of this memo – http://www.co.maui.hi.us/ArchiveCenter/ViewFile/Item/16560
It is just ridiculous to put this many measures together on one ballot. The City should be able to figure out most of these issues for itself–that’s what representative government is all about.
The government knows what’s best for us