Editor’s Scratchpad
The nation was regaled last fall with tales of chad that held up presidential election results in Florida. There were dimpled chad, pregnant chad and dangling chad, those tiny pieces of paper that had to be punched out of ballots so they could be fed into a machine for a swift vote count. It would have been funny except that chad hung up the presidency for more than a month, aroused all sorts of controversy and embarrassed the state of Florida. Punch-out ballots
won’t cause fight hereAcutely aware of all that, the Neighborhood Commission here is making doubly sure a controversy won't arise over the elections for 32 neighborhood boards in which 454 seats are open and about 600 candidates are running. The ballots require a voter to punch out a chad with a pin or ballpoint pen. Benjamin Kama, the commission's executive secretary, asked if he was worried about a repeat of the experience in Florida, replied emphatically, "No."
After the ballots are in, a group of senior citizens from Aiea will clean off the chad and prepare the ballots for counting machines. For their effort, the group gets a fee of $5,500. Kama said the commission has done this for years, and it has run without a hitch.
Eat your heart out, Florida.
Richard Halloran is Editorial section editor.
He can be reached by e-mail at rhalloran@starbulletin.com