Three more days of early walk-in balloting By DENNIS WILKEN TGI Staff Writer Absentee voting is slowly picking up as the primary election this Saturday draws nearer. More than 640 votes were cast last week on Kaua’i in the first
Three more days of early walk-in balloting
By DENNIS WILKEN
TGI Staff
Writer
Absentee voting is slowly picking up as the primary election this
Saturday draws nearer.
More than 640 votes were cast last week on Kaua’i
in the first four days that walk-in absentee balloting was available, election
officials said.
Hawai’i voters can apply for a vote-by-mail absentee
ballot. Sept. 16 was the deadline for applications for the primary.
Applications for the Nov. 7 general election may be submitted to the Kaua`i
County clerk until Oct. 31.
Hawai`i also offers in-person, walk-in absentee
voting.
Primary walk-ins have been going to the lobby of the historic
county building on Rice Street in Lihu`e since Sept. 11 and can continue to
vote there until 4 p.m. this Thursday.
If voters choose to come in on
election day – Saturday – they have between 7 a.m. and 6 p.m. to cast their
ballot.
Not as many citizens have been taking advantage of the 16 lobby
voting booths this year as did in 1998, according to deputy county clerk Ernie
Pasion.
“It’s been picking up a little, though,” Pasion noted. “We had 150
voters Monday (Sept. 11), 163 Tuesday, 164 Wednesday and 167
Thursday.”
Pasion said no one segment of the population prefers walk-in
absentee balloting.
“It’s really mixed, although more of them are 40 years
old and up,” he said.
No matter the age, absentee voting “is a very
convenient way to vote and avoid the long lines and maybe even a one or
two-hour wait on election day,” he said.
Pasion also reminded voters that,
by state law, doing your civic duty must be paid for. Voters “can pick up a
stub for their employer to prove they voted,” he said.
Voters are also
protected from the media. Hawai`i state law doesn’t allow the press to contact
voters within a 200-foot perimeter around a polling place.
Staff
writer Dennis Wilken can be reached at 245-3681 (ext. 252) and
dwilken@pulitzer.net
Staff Photo by Dennis Fujimoto
ABSENTEE
VOTERS que up to the County Clerk’s office before voting in the polls set up in
the lobby area of the historic county building.
