Hawaii's primary elections are this Saturday, and I've spent the last few days getting really worked up about something I learned over the weekend.

It turns out that several of the races are classified as nonpartisan: mayor, city council, and board of education. What this means is that the candidates don't affiliate themselves with political parties, but run merely as individuals. (Great system, I say. I personally think the party system stifles good leaders. Tim -- you can argue with me later.)

Here in Hawaii, you vote for these offices at the primary election. This is what is news to me.

In the case of the BOE, it narrows down who will be on the November ballot. For example, the many Oahu-at-large candidates will be narrowed down to six to fill three seats. Not a horrible plan.

BUT, in the case of mayor and city council, if any of the candidates gets 50% + 1 vote of the votes cast in the primary election, he is called the winner and the race won't appear on the November ballot at all. If no one gets more than 50%, it just narrows down who will be on the November ballot.

Now, here's where my problem comes in. Where I come from (Ohio), primary elections are only for those voters who are affiliated with a political party. Period. (I'm not, if you haven't figured that out already.) If you do not belong to a political party, you can safely ignore the primary election. Period. (As I used to.)

I am willing to bet that the majority of people who have moved here from other states have the same experience with primary elections that I do. They believe, as I did until a few days ago, that there is no way that they COULD vote in the primary, even if they wanted to, without declaring a party affiliation. And this can skew the outcome of the elections, since a good chunk of the voters may not know that they SHOULD be voting in the primaries, even though they are not party-affiliated. And their votes won't be cast and therefore they will not be heard.

Apparently the whole thing hasn't been much of an issue in years past, except in small races in small council districts. This year, though, polls show that the incumbent mayor has about 50% of the vote so far, and the race could be decided this Saturday. Several big council races are equally close.

I would hate for anyone to miss out on having their vote count because they didn't know that they can vote in the primary election.

The BOE slate has some scary characters on it this year -- although I suppose there have always been and will always be scary characters on it. Again, the unaffiliated should have their say in who the choices will be in November.

So, if you are a Hawaii resident and had not planned on voting this Saturday, I urge you to learn what you can about the candidates between now and then and vote on Saturday. Even if you vote for the scary people. Really.

--

They're resurfacing the road up here by work again, and the smell of asphalt is nauseating. (As an editor type I had to go look up the nauseous/nauseating distinction, which is one of those that just won't stick in my head. Most people won't know the diff.)

They resurfaced it last fall, and it quickly deteriorated. Must have something to do with the quality of the work. I can say that last fall I saw one of the asphalt guys chuck an empty Diet Pepsi can into a hole before filling the hole. A big chuckhole developed in that spot a few months later. Hmmmm...
- posted by Lori @ 4:38:00 PM | permanent link | |