The number of primary election ballots collected by the Honolulu Elections Division to date is eclipsing the number of absentee votes cast in the 2016 primary election — with 10 days to spare before the official Aug. 8 Election Day.
That could signal a much larger primary election turnout on Oahu than four years ago — at least, that’s the hope of City Clerk Glen Takahashi.
Here’s what the numbers say:
>> As of end of day Thursday, 119,401 ballot envelopes had been collected. The total absentee turnout recorded in 2016, the last time there were presidential and Honolulu mayor elections, was 103,459, according to state election records.
>> The 119,401 is about 70% of the 169,531 votes cast in the 2016 primary.
The highest primary election turnout on Oahu since 2000 was the 207,437 votes tallied in 2010, and Takahashi said the numbers so far indicate this year’s total will surpass that. “We seem to be on our way,” he said. “That’s pretty encouraging with 10 days to go.”
This is the first election that is being conducted in an “all-mail” manner, and that is contributing to the higher, early turnout, Takahashi said. “We mailed out three times as many mail ballots as we did two years ago, so one would kind of expect that (higher, early turnout),” he said.
On Thursday alone the office collected 15,273 ballot envelopes. It collected 15,765 ballots Wednesday and 16,378 packages Tuesday. The ballots were collected from the U.S. Post Office or one of eight ballot drop boxes across the island.
The Elections Division mailed out about 457,000 ballots for this year’s primary. Two years ago the city mailed out 150,000-160,000 pieces, Takahashi said.
Takahashi said he’s hopeful that the high, early turnout bears out what he and others who’ve supported the idea of all-mail elections have argued — “we’re putting the ballot in front of way more eyes than we normally would, right?”
Voters who don’t want to vote by mail have the option of visiting one of the voter service centers — at Honolulu Hale and Kapolei Hale — and fill out their ballots there. Only about 100 have shown up daily, collectively, since they first opened on Tuesday. That suggests most people are accepting the all-mail method, Takahashi said.
The official number of registered voters for the Oahu primary election is 525,153, which is about 68,000 more than the actual ballots sent out.
Takahashi said that’s because there are about 65,000 names still required to be listed as registered voters but have had “bad addresses” because mail sent by the Elections Division was returned and marked undelivered. Federal law requires voters to stay on the rolls for two full election cycles, or four years, before voters can be removed.
Those names will probably be purged shortly after this year’s general election, he said.
“A lot of them will probably be purged after this year,” Takahashi said. “We try to track them down with a mailings list, but there’s no response and there’s no activity on file, so they’re kind of in a holding space waiting to be removed.”
Takahashi stressed that under federal voting act laws, voters are not supposed to be removed from the rolls simply by failing to participate in recent elections, but only if they’ve first bounced back and are now classified as a bad address. (A voter can request to be removed, or a family member may notify Elections that the voter died.)
That’s why there are Oahu parents receiving ballots for adult children who have moved away, he said. They likely didn’t inform either the U.S. Postal Service or the Elections Division of their move, and are still having their mail accepted here, he said.
BY THE NUMBERS
119,401
mail-in ballots returned as of Thursday
103,459
2016 absentee mail-in turnout for last presidential election
457,000
ballots mailed to voters this year
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