I moved to Hawaii with my family in July 2014. In my first few weeks I did many things; got a Hawaii driver’s license, registered my vehicle, looked for long-term housing, went on several job interviews, and tried to register to vote.
Most of those activities went off without a hitch. Except registering to vote. The DMV was out of forms. Their printers were broken. I was told that I could register to vote at any state office. Several days later, I went to the state tax office. They had no voter registration forms. I walked next door to the welfare office and asked for a voter registration form. They looked at me like I was crazy, but they found one. I filled it out and turned it in.
To my surprise, when I went to the civic center to make sure I was registered to vote, I was told that I was not and that the deadline had passed.
What? I couldn’t vote? Really?
Luckily, I was still registered in California, so my voice in the 2016 primaries was still heard. I was able to register and vote in the general election as a Hawaii resident in November 2016.
I was disenfranchised. Very disenfranchised. I know the system. I am involved in politics, and I almost gave up and didn’t vote.
Imagine how I felt when I realized that paper voter registration costs 30 times more than automatic voter registration, AVR. Are you kidding! If Hawaii had enacted AVR, I could have been automatically registered on day 11 after moving to Hawaii when I went to the DMV to get my Hawaii license!
Hawaii did not lose me as a voter, but they could have. Let’s enact AVR (automatic voter registration) today so that we don’t lose any more voters to the archaic system. Aren’t the people of Hawaii disenfranchised enough?
Call your legislators and urge them to vote yes on the AVR bill!
Zahava Zaidoff is a resident of Captain Cook.