Requests up to 25,000
for isle absentee ballots
The increase seems due to
Republican and other voter drives
Mail-in absentee voting appears to be the new trend for Hawaii voters.
Requests for absentee ballots are "skyrocketing," according to elections officials, as voter registration for the Sept. 18 primary election ended yesterday.
Glen Takahashi, city election administrator, who is watching the statewide registration numbers, said 25,000 voters have already requested an absentee ballot to return by mail.
In comparison, Takahashi said, in the 2000 primary and general elections, only 26,000 voters asked for absentee mail-in ballots. Voters can also walk into temporary polling places set up before the election to cast an absentee ballot.
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Takahashi said the increase is apparently due to absentee-ballot promotions by the Republican Party and unions.
In the 2000 primary election, a total of 49,000 absentee ballots -- both mail-in and walk-in -- were cast. By 2002 the number had jumped to 69,500.
The total number of registered voters for the primary election will not be calculated until next week. Takahashi said the delay is because election officials across the state will still be collecting registration slips from those who registered by mail.
After the 2002 election, officials cleaned up the state voter lists and purged the rolls of persons who had died, moved or had not voted in two elections and did not leave a forwarding address. The cleaning dropped 103,000 names from the state election list, bringing it down to 591,000.
Since then the rolls have increased to 612,000 as people registered to vote, Takahashi said.
The election voting list purge is important, because the new voter list should contain more voters who are living in Hawaii and more likely to vote.
Takahashi said he expects the new figures to show an increase in Hawaii's voter turnout.
"We could see turnout go up by as much as 8 percent because we cleaned and purged the numbers," Takahashi said.
Hawaii election law allows anyone to vote absentee by requesting a form.
The state Republican Party and several campaigns have been stressing the absentee vote, according to Takahashi.
Brennon Morioka, GOP chairman, said Republicans are sending mailers to their supporters asking them to request an absentee ballot so they will be free to help campaign on election day.
"First, we want to make sure that people vote, and we would like our supporters to concentrate on helping our candidates on the final days," Morioka said.
Both the GOP and the Democrats are also working on increasing Hawaii's voter turnout, which, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, is the lowest in the nation. Only 41.1 percent of the registered voters in Hawaii voted in the 2002 election.
Brickwood Galuteria, Democratic Party chairman, said his party is making an effort to get young voters registered.
"We will be at the clubs and on the college campuses to encourage voter registration. We really want to encourage young people to vote in this election," Galuteria said.
