The Hawaii County Elections Office found a staggering 771 completed absentee ballots in its mailbox Monday, prompting County Clerk Stewart Maeda to issue a reminder for people to mail their ballots earlier next time.
The Hawaii County Elections Office found a staggering 771 completed absentee ballots in its mailbox Monday, prompting County Clerk Stewart Maeda to issue a reminder for people to mail their ballots earlier next time.
“We want people to use absentee ballots, but we really encourage people to get it in sooner,” Maeda said.
In comparison, there were 500 late ballots in Honolulu, 347 on Maui and 60 on Kauai, state Elections Office spokeswoman Nedielyn Bueno said.
“It varies each election year, but typically is around these numbers,” Bueno said in an emailed response to a telephone call Thursday.
Under state law, absentee ballots must be received by the Clerks Office by 6 p.m. Election Day.
Those ballots can be mailed, turned in to any polling place or dropped off at the county building in Hilo.
Ballots coming in later are not opened, but are sent with the voted ballots to Honolulu for storage, said Hawaii County Elections Administrator Pat Nakamoto.
“We were very concerned,” said Nakamoto. “We usually get a few here and there, but never that high.”
Nakamoto said the late ballots came from all over the island, and weren’t limited to a certain area. She said she doesn’t recall seeing any overseas ballots, which are returned in a different colored envelope.
Although several races were district rather than countywide, some of them were decided by far less than 771 votes.
Tim Richards beat County Councilwoman Margaret Wille by around 100 votes and House 7 incumbent Cindy Evans held on to her seat by less than 200 votes.
Absentee ballots and early voting have been steadily increasing across the island and statewide. Some 65.9 percent of Big Island voters cast early ballots either at early voting precincts or by mail. That compares to 61.9 percent statewide.
Maeda said the county will be including reminders to mail the ballots earlier when it sends absentee ballots out for the Nov. 8 general election.
Just 37.3 percent of Hawaii’s registered voters turned in a ballot this election, compared to 34.8 percent statewide, an all-time low.
That’s down from 42.6 percent in the 2012 primary, the last time there was a mayoral race on the ballot, and 37.5 percent in the 2014 primary, when Tropical Storm Iselle was playing havoc with Puna polling places.