New election laws
aim to quell fears

Gov. Linda Lingle and lawmakers hope to instill a little more public faith in the elections system with two new laws signed yesterday.

One law, sponsored by Rep. Cynthia Thielen (R, Kaneohe-Kailua), ends Hawaii's unique requirement that every precinct chairman be of the same political party as the sitting governor.

The other, sponsored by freshman Rep. Rida Cabanilla (D, Waipahu-Ewa), tries to allay identity theft fears of those signing nomination papers for political candidates by allowing them to include only the last four digits of their Social Security numbers as identification.

Requiring the chairman who decides disputes and problems at each polling place to be a member of the same party as the governor creates the appearance of impropriety, said Lingle, the state's first Republican governor in four decades.

Imagine if you are a candidate for governor and no one from your party has been elected to the office in 40 years -- for example -- and you learn that on election day the party that wants to keep you from winning is guaranteed to have the chief arbiter at every polling place in the state, Lingle said.

Until yesterday, Hawaii was the only U.S. state to have such a requirement, she said.

"We're only involving more people in our political process if they perceive it's fair and every candidate has an equal chance in the election," Lingle said.

Beaming with pride, Cabanilla said she came upon the idea for her nomination form bill during her campaign: Some of the people she asked to sign papers in her support voiced concerns over also providing their Social Security numbers.

Cabanilla said she hopes the new law can encourage more people to participate in the election process.

Several other elections-related bills have been making their way through the Legislature this session.

Last week, Lingle said she would veto a bill creating a public financing system for the campaigns of governor, lieutenant governor and prosecuting attorney.

And while Lingle said she has not focused a lot of her attention on elections issues, she said there are serious problems with a bill proposing that all voting in the state be conducted by mail.

"Clearly, it goes in the opposite direction of us trying to show that the system is fair and balanced and open, because it is just so much easier to commit fraud via mail than it is if you have to go in person to a polling place," she said.

The mail-in elections bill as well as three campaign spending bills will be considered in conference committees of the House and Senate on Wednesday.