Advertisement - Click to support our sponsors.
Election If everything runs smoothly on Election Day, voters can expect to see final election results by 11:30 p.m. Tuesday, the Office of Elections says.
officials prepare for
possible delays
Officials say people also should
study the ballot and voting
procedures to help
avoid problems
General Election Guide
By Treena Shapiro
Star-BulletinIf not, it's going to be another long night for election officials.
The election office has spent the weeks since the primary election trying to anticipate and prevent problems in the general election, but state chief election officer Dwayne Yoshina assigns some of the responsibility to voters.
"People should study the ballot and be prepared because it's a long ballot," he said. Each voter will be given two ballots printed on both sides, so voters should remember to turn their ballots over to make sure they cast a vote in every contest, he said.
Yoshina said the election staff has reiterated polling procedures to precinct officials to ensure ballot secrecy isn't violated. Several voters complained that precinct workers looked at their ballots during the primary election.
During the primary, Elections Systems & Software, the company that provides the ballot-counting machines, had volunteers help voters tear the stubs off ballots so they wouldn't jam the machines. Yoshina said that led to some precinct workers looking at completed ballots.
"Voters should insist that they put their ballots in; there should be no intervention in that process," he said. Voters who feel their privacy has been violated should report problems to the precinct chairperson, "we hope with courtesy, patience and understanding," he added.
Yoshina said he remains "cautiously optimistic" that the election will go off without a hitch, but he can't control machines. "We're working with machines, and machines are going to fail," he said.
During the primary election, 12 ballot-counting machines malfunctioned, but election workers swapped them quickly, Yoshina said. The same process will be used in the general election.
The counting centers statewide will begin counting about 98 percent of the absentee ballots Tuesday while the precincts are still open, and the totals will be released on the first printout after all the precincts are closed. It's the remainder of the absentee ballots that could create a problem, he says.
Every election, voters who requested absentee ballots fail to mail them back in and instead drop them off at the precincts on election day, Yoshina said. Absentee ballots are dropped off in envelopes that can't be opened until after all the precincts close. Certifying those, as well as the mailed votes that come in on election day, takes time.
"Those are the guys that cause us to put out our final printout in the morning," he said.
City Clerk Genny Wong said that as of yesterday, 22,000 of 38,000 absentee mail ballots had already been returned, and 12,000 people have cast walk-in absentee ballots.
The last day for walk-in absentee voting is tomorrow. Voters can cast ballots at Honolulu Hale and Windward Mall until 4 p.m. and at Pearlridge Center until 3:30 p.m.
Mailed ballots must be received by 6 p.m. Tuesday, whether they are mailed or dropped off at the precincts, Wong said.
Barring all complications, election spokesman Rex Quidilla said the first printout should come shortly after 6 p.m. and will include all the walk-in absentee ballots and 98 percent of the mailed-in ballots.
The second printout should be available about 9:30 p.m., Quidilla said, but he couldn't estimate how many precincts that would include.
