Isles lag nation
in voter turnout

A report on last year's election
has Hawaii last in the nation in
eligible voters casting ballots

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By Bruce Dunford
Associated Press

FEWER THAN HALF of Hawaii's voting-age residents are deciding who gets to run the state and counties and represent the islands in Washington, according to a national report released Thursday.

In fact, Hawaii is shown trailing the nation in voter turnout in the 2000 presidential election.

Chief Election Officer Dwayne Yoshina, however, said he thinks the Hawaii figures are skewed by the relatively large number of aliens and military personnel in the islands.

"These people can't vote, but they are included in the federal figure for the voting-age population," he said.

Figures compiled by the Committee for the Study of the American Electorate, a nonpartisan research group, said 40.8 percent of the voting-age people in Hawaii voted last year. Arizona was next lowest at 42.3 percent, followed by Texas, Nevada, Georgia and California.

The national average was 51.2 percent.

At the other end, Minnesota recorded the highest turnout with 68.8 percent, followed by Maine at 67.3 percent and Alaska at 66.4 percent.

Yoshina said if Hawaii's turnout is based on the eligible voter population, the turnout increases to 48.5 percent in the 2000 election. He noted that 58.3 percent of Hawaii's registered voters cast ballots.

Skewed or not, Yoshina said Hawaii could do more to encourage a bigger voter turnout.

While the Office of Elections is charged with voter registration and voter education, Yoshina said it can do only so much with the amount of money it gets.

It is also a responsibility of the education system, the political parties and the candidates themselves to encourage people to vote, he said.

As for getting voters registered, "we've done as much as we can to make those services available," Yoshina said. "I think if you look at where Hawaii is in making registration and voting accessible, we're up there with the best of them."

Using the Democratic Party's dominance in Hawaii politics as a reason for voter apathy is too easy an excuse, he said, noting that the Republican Party's recent resurgence did not appear to stimulate an increased voter turnout.

"I think if you give them a good message that reverberates and resonates in the community, they'll vote," Yoshina said.

Nationally, the voter report shows that Republicans did a more effective job than Democrats in getting their parties' voters to the polls in 2000.

The study said Democratic voter registration continued a steady decline that started in the 1960s.