Balloting should
go smoother second
time around

The company supplying the
voting system says it's
worked out the bugs

By Rod Ohira
Star-Bulletin

Elections Systems & Software has modified ballot sleeves and made other adjustments to correct snafus that occurred in the primary election.

"Ninety percent of the problem was due to first-time use," said Tom Eschberger, vice president of the company supplying the computers for this year's elections. "We learned some things and the state learned some things.

"We had thousands of jams, but we've done some things to make the system more forgiving while maintaining accuracy. The second time around will be better."

Modifying the size of the ballot sleeves should make feeding it into the scanner at the precincts easier, Eschberger said.

Absentee ballots marked with ballpoint pens created a major problem during the primary because the central counter system reads only marks containing graphite. The ballots rejected by the counters were manually re-marked, stamped and fed back into the machines.

Officials conducted a statewide test of the central counter system for independent observers to ensure its accuracy and integrity.

"I have concerns about the absentee ballot counter's performance because I don't know how accurately it reads pencil marks," said Thomas Conlon, the Republicans' chief election observer. "I think it's safe to assume some votes were not read (in the primary)."

Small graphite pencils were mailed out with absentee ballots, but it may not resolve the problem, says Conlon.

"People aren't comfortable marking ballots with devices that can be erased and then sending it to a government office," Conlon said.

Chief elections officer Dwayne Yoshina is anticipating a problem with mailed-in absentee ballots.

Ballots marked in ink will be re-marked by one person in the presence of two others -- a state worker and an independent elections observer -- when absentee vote counting begins Tuesday.

On Oahu, the city clerk's office mailed out 35,700 absentee ballots. As of yesterday, 11,600 people had cast absentee votes at walk-in sites, where officials do not expect any ballot-marking problems.

The new system has the capability to count ballots at individual precincts and transmit results by modem, but Yoshina isn't planning on using those features this year.

"It's a judgement call I've made," Yoshina said. "With time and experience, it might be a nice thing."

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City Charter amendments
face challenge

By Gordon Y.K. Pang
Star-Bulletin

Opponents say they will challenge Tuesday's election on proposed City Charter amendments, regardless of the outcome.

Grace Furukawa, president of the League of Women Voters of Honolulu, said the ballots are not valid because the Charter Commission that put the questions before the voters was illegally formed.

The state courts have already thrown out two other challenges by the League of Women Voters against the amendments.

Saunders said, however, that the courts determined there was no urgency in stopping the amendment questions from appearing on the ballot but suggested that the opponents return later to argue validity.

City attorneys say the courts indicated the argument likely would not succeed on its merits.

Political commentator Bob Rees, who said he is joining the lawsuit, noted that Mayor Jeremy Harris and Council Chairman Mufi Hannemann formed a commission only after failing to gain six votes necessary to move amendments dealing with their reorganization plan through the Council.

William Saunders, the attorney in the suit, said it will be filed even if all seven amendments are shot down by voters next week as recommended by the league.

That's because the commission, which convened during the summer, promised to take on additional charter issues after next week's election for voters to look at in 2000.

"They can't decide to perpetuate themselves indefinitely," Rees said.

The opponents add that the continued existence of a commission would prevent the City Council from introducing Charter amendments.

The core objection deals with what the opponents feel was the forced creation of a Charter Commission.

The Charter states that the mayor and Council chairman will convene a commission "on or before Feb. 1, 2001, and at intervals of 10 years thereafter."

Harris, Hannemann and other supporters of the reorganization amendments say that language allows them to start the commission early.

The key changes would merge the Planning and Permitting Department (formerly the Department of Land Utilization) with the Planning Department and combine the Budget and Fiscal Services Department (formerly the Finance Department) with the Finance Department.

Reorganization supporters say the changes will bring efficiency and make the city more customer-friendly.

Opponents say the amendments destroy a time-tested system of checks and balances.

Saunders said the city may agree to a set of stipulations of facts, which would allow the issue to bypass the Circuit Court and go directly to the Hawaii Supreme Court.

"It's going to go to the Supreme Court eventually anyway," Saunders said.

As quickly as opponents of the amendments want to put them away, proponents want to see them enacted, he said.

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State rep rebuts claims
in challenger’s brochure

By Helen Altonn
Star-Bulletin

Documents supplied by Democratic state Rep. Alex Santiago show information about him in a brochure circulated by Republican challenger Jeff Rezents is false.

Santiago, House Health Committee chairman, produced letters and other documents to refute statements about his work at Kahuku Hospital more than three years ago.

State Democratic Party Chairman Walter Heen said the Rezents brochure is one example of a "mainland, Republican-style smear campaign" in contested legislative races.

He said recent Republican mailings contain "innuendos, smears and outright lies."

Jesse Yescalis, Hawaii Republican Party executive director, said, "Walter Heen is so used to running campaigns where there is no opposition that having a Republican candidate that expresses himself in any way whatsoever is a little too much for him to handle."

Yescalis said the party spent about $100,000 on mailings for GOP legislative candidates in recent weeks. Some went statewide in every district, and some were targeted to strongly competitive races, he said.

"We have attempted to level the playing field for some of our legislative candidates ... because many of the challengers are going to be outspent 2-to-1, 3-to-1, even 10-to-1 by well-financed Democratic incumbents," Yescalis said.

Santiago has served in the House since 1990. He joined Kahuku Hospital as a social worker in 1989. He said he resigned Aug. 31, 1995, because of concerns about the hospital administration. The administrator at that time accepted his resignation and thanked Santiago for his services, according to the letters.

Rezents' brochure claims "the hospital nearly lost its accreditation because of difficulties with its social programs.

"During this period, our incumbent legislator Alex Santiago was a social worker at the hospital on a taxpayer-funded contract

"Conflicts arising from his two taxpayer-funded jobs contributed to both the accreditation scare and the termination of Santiago's contract with the hospital for failing to performing his contractual obligations."

Santiago's documents include a state Ethics Commission decision that there was no conflict between his hospital and legislative jobs.

Although taxpayers paid his legislative salary, the hospital paid him for his social work, he said.

Kris Corliss, the hospital's coordinator for the Joint Commission for the Accreditation of Health Care Organizations, said reports for the period in question were reviewed in detail.

"There is no evidence in the JCAHO survey reports that the hospital nearly lost its accreditation for any reason," she said.

Daniel Ditto, chairman of the hospital's board, said he wasn't involved at the time in question, but Santiago has provided "invaluable" support to the financially distressed hospital. He said the hospital would have closed without Santiago's help.

Rezents, who owns a window tinting business, has never called or talked to him, Ditto said.