With nearly one in four eligible Kauaians already having voted absentee for the general election of today, Tuesday, Nov. 2, the first printout of results that will include most of those absentee numbers will go a long way in telling
With nearly one in four eligible Kauaians already having voted absentee for the general election of today, Tuesday, Nov. 2, the first printout of results that will include most of those absentee numbers will go a long way in telling the day’s winners and losers.
County Clerk Peter Nakamura said from previous election experiences that the absentee voters come from all parts of the island. “That’s a fairly representative sample” of the island, he said.
By the end of the absentee walk-in voting period that ended at 4 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 30, some 5,271 people had cast their ballots at the historic County Building on Rice Street in Lihu‘e, he said.
Some 4,556 Kauaians requested mail-in absentee ballots, and as of late last week around 3,200 had returned them. The remaining voters who requested mail-in absentee ballots have until the polls close at 6 p.m. today to get those ballots either into the hands of county elections officials, or to post offices. Elections workers will make one last run to the post office after the polls close to collect remaining absentee mail-in ballots, Nakamura said.
With 36,685 Kauaians registered to vote today, the total who had voted absentee was 8,471, or over 23 percent of the total number of registered voters. There were 37,392 registered voters for the 2002 general election, and 34,600 for the 2000 general election.
By federal law, registered voters who do not vote in two consecutive general elections are taken off the list of registered voters, “purged” in some circles, or victims of “file maintenance” in county clerk speak.
Still, Nakamura appears to remain in the enviable position where other county clerks are concerned because of the county’s history of high voter turnout. “I think Kaua‘i people tend to show up and vote,” and Kaua‘i was second in voter-turnout percentage only to Honolulu during a recent election where Honolulu had a mayor’s race and Kaua‘i did not.
“Usually, Kaua‘i has been pretty good in terms of turnout,” Nakamura said. Traditionally, voter turnout at the Tuesday general election is higher than at the Saturday primary election, where people might be off work but planned activities that get in the way of voting, he said.
A higher turnout is usually experienced at the general election, as people who normally work that weekday find time either before or after their shifts, or during their lunch breaks, to cast their ballots, he added.
Nakamura laughs when asked if the single weekday between the end of absentee walk-in voting Saturday, Oct. 30 and the day of the general election today, Tuesday, Nov. 2, is something of a calm-before-the-storm day for elections officials. “We’re fairly busy,” he said.
Yesterday, Monday, Nov. 1, elections officials were very busy, making sure polling booths and other necessary supplies were delivered to polling places from Kekaha to Ha‘ena, making sure there are enough workers to staff each precinct, and taking telephone calls “hopefully not from (poll) workers saying they can’t report,” he said.
He doesn’t expect a shortage of poll workers today. Precinct chairs generally call all poll workers the night before the election to make sure they’re planning on working, and “we train more than necessary” so that if some can’t show up, alternates are available to take their places, said Nakamura.
On Saturday, Oct. 30, a test of ballot-counting machines occurred, with counting-center volunteer observers from both major parties and other interested people certifying that the counting machines are working properly, he explained.
The counting center today is at Kaua‘i Community College, and results will either be faxed or driven to the historic County Building, where the media, representatives of interested candidates, and others will gather to get those results hot off the copy machine.
Nakamura said he hasn’t received any calls or letters from people worried about voter fraud at the polls. “We haven’t had any incidences.” In Arizona, some worry that new black and Hispanic voters are being or might be intimidated, and in other states there were reports of people being paid to register others to vote. No such actions have been reported on Kaua‘i, he said.
Paul C. Curtis, associate editor, may be reached at 245-3681 (ext. 224) or pcurtis@pulitzer.net.
