If the coronavirus is still doing its worst when Election Day arrives — let’s hope it’s not — Hawaii can at least cross one thing off its worry list: With vote-by-mail, there won’t be throngs crowding into polling stations, sharing whatever illness they have going.
But there are many more things on the worry list where the 2020 elections are concerned, mostly arising from the fact that this is the state’s first full-scale vote-by-mail experience. Yes, there are obvious advantages of filling out ballots in the privacy of one’s own home, the social distancing during a coronavirus pandemic being only the most obvious, currently.
The other is that it’s supposed to be convenient, thereby bringing more new voters into the electorate, expanding the democratic franchise.
But there are worrying gaps already in the run-up to the election, possibly leading to many potential and willing voters left out.
There is time to steer clear of that sad ending, but it’s going to take effort, in the form of outreach, to make sure that as few voters are in the dark as possible.
The state Office of Elections is well aware of one major potential problem. Scott Nago, the state’s chief elections officer, said more than 111,000 voters have outdated voter registration records which, if they’re not corrected, will lead to their elimination from the mail-in ballot distribution list.
Nago added that these include people flagged as being on a national change-of-address list, from the 2018 election cycle to the present. A person who hasn’t corrected his or her voter registration information in two election cycles gets dropped from the state’s registry, he said.
Each of those flagged is sent a forwardable card to their old address, which the post office is to relay to the new address, Nago said. They can correct addresses by returning the card. But not very many are coming back, he said, which suggests that many may have moved out of state.
There are multiple ways to either check voter status or register as a new voter, including the Online Voter Registration System (olvr.hawaii.gov Opens in a new tab). Additionally, there will be voter service centers established starting in later July where registration can be done in person, even on Election Day itself.
But there will be far fewer options for last-minute voters than there were in 2018, when each voting precinct had a polling station that could handle registrations as well.
That’s because the state has anticipated setting up only eight of the centers statewide, to open 10 business days before each of the Aug. 8 primary and Nov. 3 general elections. That seems too few, really, for a system still sitting on the launchpad. Two are planned on Oahu, two on Hawaii island and one each on Maui, Molokai, Lanai and Kauai.
Until Hawaii voters become more accustomed to the new system of voting by mail, at least through this inaugural year, expect that many people will need help, face-to-face — and often without realizing it until the last minute.
Also, those who wait until only a day or two before the election to fill in their ballot will be urged not to drop it in the mail, but to bring it to deposit points to be named later, since ballots must be delivered, not postmarked, by Election Day. Nago said Oahu would have around a half-dozen of these sites, opening five days in advance. Again, this may not be quite enough.
The elections office has no plans for an outsized public-education budget this cycle, either. But it should.
The 2020 election has high-interest national and local races — not a time when anyone should be effectively disenfranchised. The intent is for vote-by-mail to boost Hawaii’s sorry turnout rate, but voters and officials have to work to make it happen.
