STAR-BULLETIN / SEPTEMBER 2004
In the last general election in 2004, only 49 percent of the voting-eligible population cast ballots, according to the United States Elections Project. Here, a voter casts his ballot at the polling station in the Mililani High School cafeteria.
Primary unlikely to buck low-turnout trend
Fewer voters go to the polls in Hawaii than in any other state
After the handshaking, sign-waving and TV campaigning is over in Hawaii, an embarrassingly small number of people are expected to vote on election day.
Hawaii has had the lowest voter turnout in the country during the last two elections, and that trend is not expected to change on Sept. 23 for the primary election or Nov. 7 for the general election.
Voting records show a steady downswing in voter participation since Hawaii became a state in 1959, when 94 percent of registered voters went to the general election polls to say which candidates they felt best represented them.
In the last general election in 2004, only 49 percent of the voting-eligible population cast ballots, according to the United States Elections Project.
What has changed since the days when union officials drove field workers to polling places and nearly everyone participated?
There are many theories: that Hawaii's laid-back lifestyle breeds apathy, that residents do not think their votes count, that the statistics are skewed by the state's unique population or that the Democratic Party's dominance discourages competitive races.
"Unless people participate in this, there's a big danger of losing whatever we hold dear in the form of a democratic government," said Jean Aoki, legislative chairwoman for the League of Women Voters of Hawaii.
State election officials dispute the claim that Hawaii's residents are less active than voters in other states. They say Hawaii's voting figures are lower only because it has high military and nonvoting immigrant populations, and if those were accounted for, Hawaii might not be ranked at the bottom of the pack.
Whether that is true is unclear.
The state's election office counts voter turnout as a percentage of registered voters -- 67 percent in 2004 -- while the United States Elections Project comes up with its lower turnout figure by compiling Census data of all eligible voters, excluding military, noncitizens, felons and prisoners.
Without a doubt, voting has been steadily falling out of style in Hawaii over the years regardless of what figures are used.
"It reflects a lack of knowledge as to why citizen participation is so important in keeping our democratic form of government in place," said Hawaii Supreme Court Chief Justice Ronald Moon. "I think it's because they don't understand what politics is all about."
Hawaii has removed most of the barriers that stop people from voting -- absentee ballot applications were mailed to all of Oahu's 220,000 households this year, the primary election will be held on a Saturday, early voting is offered and voter registration forms are available at motor vehicle offices and phone books.
It is already too late to register for Hawaii's primary election, but voters have until Oct. 9 to sign up for the general election.
"We have made the services available, but citizens have to feel that there is meaning in participation. The meaning is provided by political parties and campaigns," said Dwayne Yoshina, the state's chief election officer.
One of the main reasons for Hawaii's poor voter turnout could be the dominance of the Democratic Party, which controls about 80 percent of the Legislature and the state's four seats in Congress, said Kate Zhou, a University of Hawaii political science professor.
Most candidates are decided in the primary election, and people feel the candidates have been preordained, she said.
"Because we are mostly Democrats, the same group of people get elected. It discourages diversity and new people coming in," Zhou said. "If you don't have competition, people will not be interested."
Nationwide, a smaller portion of the population votes than used to, said Curtis Gans, director of the Center for the Study of the American Electorate.
"We've moved gradually to more and more ease in voting and registration, and voter turnout has gone down. So it has to be motivation," Gans said. "It doesn't always mean voter apathy at all. It could be profound dissatisfaction with the choices presented."
Still, there are some positive signs that turnout might not be quite as low as the experts fear. The number of registered voters in the state has increased by about 24,000 since the 2004 primary election, to more than 650,000, election officials said. And 53,000 voters have requested absentee mail-in ballots so far.