Advertisement - Click to support our sponsors.

Election officer:
Candidates should
woo voters

'To say that we are supposed
to get out the voters
is a tall order'

By Richard Borreca
Star-Bulletin

Increasing voter registration, according to Dwayne Yoshina, chief election officer, is primarily the job of those running for office and the political parties.

It's not the job of his agency, the Office of Elections.

Yoshina was asked at an Elections Appointment and Review Panel yesterday by panel member Julie Duldulao what plans he had for a voter registration drive.

"When are you guys going to start the media blitz ... during public testimony, again and again, the Legislature kept saying we want public voter education," Duldulao said.

Yoshina said the Legislature wouldn't give him the money he had sought for a voter education drive.

Yoshina added, however, that he was trying to prepare information on constitutional amendments and on Hawaii's single-party primary system.

Later he told reporters he didn't think it was part of his office's job.

"I think it is really the candidate and the campaigns that have to get people out to vote," he said.

"Our job is to provide the service of the election. Our job is to provide convenient, accessible and secure election services, which we do.

"To say that we are supposed to get out the voters is a tall order."

Yoshina recalled that in past elections, the state elections office did launch extensive media campaigns to get out the vote.

The best way to lure voters to the polls, he said, was "when you have contested campaigns and issues, then voters turn out."

The state law describing the duties of the chief election officer includes responsibility "for maximizing registration of eligible electors throughout the state."

"The chief election officer, in carrying out this function, may make surveys, carry on house-to-house canvassing and assist or direct the clerk in any other area of registration."

According to state statistics, 68 percent of Hawaii's registered voters cast a ballot in the 1998 general election

In the primary, however, only 50 percent of the registered voters turned out to vote.