The state Office of Elections was “absurdly out of touch” with the situation in Puna after Tropical Storm Iselle, state Sen. Russell Ruderman said Tuesday afternoon.
Ruderman was speaking to County Clerk Stewart Maeda and the County Council’s Public Safety and Mass Transit Committee in Hilo, as they addressed the primary election situation. South Kona/Ka‘u Councilwoman Brenda Ford asked Maeda for an update on Maeda’s plans for the upcoming General Election, particularly for Puna, where Pahoa is threatened by a lava flow.
“What’s inexcusable to me was the change in decision (from the plan to mail absentee ballots to voters in two Puna precincts closed following the storm),” Ruderman said. “To change that after having officially notified everyone who made their way to the polling place. We gave people a change in official notification, (with just) three days’ notice. … That’s not fair. I can’t believe that it’s legal.”
Kohala Councilwoman Margaret Wille asked why the entire election results weren’t thrown out.
“I’m not aware of any remaining remedy, except from the federal Department of Justice, which is aware of our complaints,” Ruderman said.
Maeda, addressing complaints raised by residents of other precincts who could not vote on Election Day and then were not allowed to vote on the makeup election day, said once the election started, only the governor could extend voting hours there. While county and state election officials, as well as Civil Defense officials, were aware on the day before the primary that two Puna precincts would be unable to open, they looked only at precinct sites and not other potentially closed subdivisions.
“In hindsight, we probably would have closed those polling places (in other parts of Puna) as well,” Maeda said. “When we were assessing on the morning after the hurricane, we were assessing our precincts and making sure they were accessible. That’s why those were postponed.”
Ford and Ruderman asked Maeda to consider doing only mail-in ballots for the upcoming General Election.
A handful of Puna residents offered their thoughts on the primary election, which they uniformly said was not handled well in the aftermath of Tropical Storm Iselle.
Author Frankie Stapleton, who lives in Nanawale Estates, was a poll watcher at both the Aug. 9 primary and Aug. 15 makeup Election Day.
“The instant I got to the poll (on Aug. 9), I complained to the precinct chair that the election was being held while people couldn’t get there,” Stapleton told the council members. “I just happened to be lucky enough to live at the top of Nanawale so I could get there. We had no word as to whether the election was going on or not. I subsequently observed the elections. I went down to the precincts that were shut down. It was obvious why. The trees were down. This whole thing was mishandled.”
Rene Siracusa raised several questions she would like to see addressed in any emergency plan.
“If someone has to evacuate, do you treat them like they’ve moved or are on vacation?” she asked. “Those things can be addressed in a general, overall plan. If you wait to the last minute, what if the last minute is Election Day? People are already stressed out with Iselle, having failed to vote in the primary. If they could not vote in the general on top that, they would really be on the edge.”
Earlier in the day, the Finance Committee considered a number of proposed bills amending the county’s real property tax code. Three of them originated with the county’s Real Property Tax Task Force and will go to the full council for a vote next month. Two, one requiring a Hawaii state tax return to qualify for a homeowner’s exemption and one increasing the property value exemption, go with a positive recommendation. The third, eliminating the opportunity to file for a homeowner’s exemption midyear, was given a negative recommendation.