State election officials say the redistricting process may create a logistical nightmare for them if it continues beyond Feb. 1, 2002, the day candidates can begin taking out nomination papers for the 2002 elections. Redistricting delays pose
problems for candidatesBy Pat Omandam
pomandam@starbulletin.comThat's because candidates still won't know the exact boundaries of the districts they want to represent. Nearly all seats in public office are up for election next year.
"How is someone going to run if he doesn't know where the districts are?" said chief elections officer Dwayne Yoshina.
Yoshina told the Elections Appointment and Review Panel on Tuesday the 2001 Reapportionment Commission may not approve a final plan until late January, possibly delaying the date when people can officially file their candidacy for public office.
"What's going to happen if they do that is those guys are not going to be able to pick up (nomination) papers. So that's going to be tough for candidates," Yoshina said.
The Reapportionment Commission will intentionally miss its constitutionally mandated deadline tomorrow to approve a final redistricting plan. The bi-partisan panel wants to consider a new legislative map that eliminates most multi-island or canoe districts and uses a population base that excludes non-resident military dependents.
Its chairman, Wayne Minami, has said he intends to also hold public hearings on this plan -- a slow, deliberate process that could push final approval of a new legislative map into late January.
The commission held statewide hearings on another plan in September, but that map has fallen out of favor with a majority of commissioners.
Meanwhile, Yoshina warned voters in the 2002 elections their polling places may change because of redistricting. It is a problem that happens every ten years and causes a lot of confusion among voters who often focus their frustration at precinct and election officials.
Other changes in next year's elections may be the inclusion of new languages on the ballots. Currently, English, Filipino and Japanese are printed on state ballots, but the U.S. Justice Department may require the state add Korean, Samoan, Vietnamese and possibly Spanish, based on the population results of Census 2000.
Yoshina said Electronic Systems & Software is under contract for three more election cycles in Hawaii. Overall, he said, Hawaii has one of the better voting systems in the country.
In 1998, seven ES&S vote-counting machines malfunctioned during the general election, which forced the Legislature to demand a recount. The recount of 412,000 ballots in close races verified the elections and showed the optical scanning ballots machines to be 99 percent accurate.
State of Hawaii
