Honest Voting

The state of Hawaii will change its ballots this year so that when voters make their choice during the September 20th primary election, they will have to choose a political party. In previous years, voters were handed ballots color-coded by party; this year, everyone fills out the same white ballot.

Mark Niesse writes for the Associated Press (in an article in the Washington Post) that both Democrats and Republicans worry that they’ll lose the voters who don’t realize they have to choose a party before voting. Votes without a political party marked won’t be counted.

“What we’re concerned about is the chance that someone might half-consciously check the Independent box and then vote the straight Democratic Party ballot and then have their votes voided,” said Bart Dame, a Democratic Party elections observer who has seen the ballot.

The Elections Office acknowledges that voters could make that mistake, but they believe the instructions on the ballot will guide voters through the process. In addition, voting machines will return ballots with overvotes, and voters will be allowed to redo their selections before they leave the polling place.

Under this system the greatest problem could be with absentee ballots, which cannot be corrected once mailed in. One third of Hawaii’s voters voted by absentee ballot in 2006.

A side note: Election machine manufacturers are battling over Hawaii’s custom. Hawaii is using paper scan and electronic voting machines made by Hart InterCivic this year under a $43 million contract intended to run through 2016. A state administrative hearings officer has ruled that the contract be rebid, finding that the cost was “clearly unreasonable” compared to an $18 million bid from rival company Election Systems & Software. Hart filed an appeal in circuit court on August 18th.

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