Our elections need a makeover
By David Shapiro
The Legislature claimed a need to protect against political interference in elections when it pushed through a constitutional amendment taking responsibility for elections away from the lieutenant governor and creating a separate Office of Elections.
Bad move. There was little controversy over the conduct of elections when the lieutenant governor was in charge and constant dispute since the separate office was set up.
Claims of protecting against political interference blew up Friday when a House committee called a hearing to pressure the Office of Elections to postpone a special election it has set for May 22 to replace Neil Abercrombie in the 1st Congressional District.
It was as blatant a display of political interference in elections as we've ever seen, especially after the attorney general advised that putting off the special election and leaving half the state's residents disenfranchised in Congress would likely be illegal.
It's time to admit that the change in the way we run our elections has failed, producing record low voter turnout and endless squabbles over fairness and competence.
Lt. Gov. James "Duke" Aiona this year proposed an elected secretary of state to run elections, but a better solution is to give it back to the lieutenant governor, who has few other constitutional responsibilities and did the job fine until the system was changed.
With little else to do, a lieutenant governor is highly motivated to perform well on elections as one of the few opportunities to prove fitness for the top job.
If voters are unhappy with the way elections are run, they have somebody to vote out instead of dealing with an inaccessible Office of Elections and a meddling Legislature.
Volcanic Ash
March 8th, 2010 at 3:49 am
Is Colleen Hanabusa behind this effort to delay the special election? She is down in the polls and may want more time to catch up.
March 8th, 2010 at 5:23 am
The leg and our senior Senator should stop playing politics with this special election! We must not let the seat sit empty for essentially a whole year!
March 8th, 2010 at 6:22 am
The Office of Elections was administratively attached to the LGs office, nothing more than that. So you wouldn't be able to "judge" the ability of the LG on how that office did.
And voter turnout is a bit more nuanced than where the office is administratively attached.
But it makes for a good blog post, I suppose.
March 8th, 2010 at 6:24 am
I'd also like to see us move to nonpartisan elections, which could also obviate the need for primary elections. I'd also like to move to MVP-type elections, where we'd vote for our first, second, and third choices, and would only need one election instead of two.
March 8th, 2010 at 6:47 am
You may be on to something when you say this was "as blatant a display of political interference in elections as we've ever seen," so why don't you bother to explain the politics and motives?
March 8th, 2010 at 7:14 am
Dave, I really don't think you can corellate the Office of Electionss independent status with low voter turnout. Unless you want the OE to start putting out ad like the Census Bureau is doing (and we don't even know if that's going to work), what in the world could the OE do to get people to vote? We already have absentee voting where you don't even have to be out of state. Do an all-mail primary and general? Fine, but you have to change the law to do it. I think you've got a very spurious correllation going on there.
March 8th, 2010 at 9:07 am
@Earl of Sandwich Actually, the state did run a get out the vote effort at one time until the elections office decided in some budget crunch that it should be the responsibility of the parties. But I don't think this is what depresses the vote. The constant disputes over voting machines and such, charges of irregularities like the Caldwell thing and the last two elections officers leaving with footprints on their butts undermine voter confidence and contribute to keeping them home.
@What's the plot A legislative committee trying to tell the supposedly "independent" elections office when to hold an election is obvious political interference and my aim wasn't to point fingers beyond that, just to note that the set up isn't protecting against political interference as it's supposed to and we may as well go back to the old way that worked better.
@Charles It's disingenuous to suggest that the LG's oversight was administrative only and that (s)he didn't take personal responsibility for making sure elections ran properly. In 1972, Fasi beat Anderson for re-election, but not by as much as he thought he should have, and his guys grumbled that the computerized count was rigged. It became a serious stir when a respected TV reporter voiced the same suspicion. LG Ariyoshi summoned reporters to the Capitol the next day and made us count a randomly selected district by hand, which matched the computerized count. Case closed. The controversy was over in a day instead of dragging on for weeks as it would today.
March 8th, 2010 at 9:32 am
Isn't the fundamental problem that we would frequently have a Lt. Governor running an election in which he or she was a candidate?
March 8th, 2010 at 9:51 am
Dave, you have some good points. But I think you draw the wrong conclusions.
The decision to remove the Office of Elections from the LG's office WAS well-intended. If we review the recent problems of the OoE, which of them would not have emerged if the Office were still attached to the LG's office?
We simultaneously want the Chief Elections Officer to be independent from political interference and want him (her) to be accountable to someone's authority.
Look at the decision to award the voting contract to Hart InterCivic for $43 million instead of to ES&S for $18M. If the Office were attached to the LG's office, would the award been handled differently? Or would we just assume Hart had given campaign contributions to Lingle or Aiona?
Dwayne Yoshina ran elections very well for several years. Which is not to say there were no problems. Modern elections are massive undertakings, processing hundreds of thousands of ballots in a very compressed time. I have been a pretty tough critic of the OoE and continue to disagree with them on several matters. But Hawaii has avoided the worse problems which have plagued elections in other states.
For those who believe, like Aiona apparently does, that an elected Secretary of State would prevent massive election problems, let me offer two names: Katherine Harris of Florida and Ken Blackwell of Ohio. Both were elected Secretaries of State. As elected officials, they were inherently politicians, with ties, loyalties and ambitions beyond their narrow job description. I believe Harris, along with five Republican members of the Supreme Court, gave the 2000 election to George Bush. Blackwell deliberately engaged in voter suppression and ignored blatant violations as part of his effort to aid the Bush campaign in 2004.
Even those who might disagree with my conclusions on this, must admit the partisan nature of these people encourage such suspicions. I believe the Chief Elections Officer should not be a politician. We will always have problems, of one magnitude or another, in elections. I would rather have a civil service professional in charge, accountable to a strong Election Commission, than trust the job directly to a politician.
In my view, we need to figure how to strengthen the Election Commission as the authority to whom the Chief Elections Officer is allegedly accountable. They currently see the elections process through the eyes of the CEO and have difficulty receiving alternative reports of what is going on.
March 8th, 2010 at 10:54 am
Trying to take politics out of elections is chasing your shadow.
Aloha,
Keahi
March 8th, 2010 at 11:07 am
Jim Loomis makes an interesting point... If I remember correctly, no sitting Lt. Governor running for governor lost under the old system! As on comedian said, if you let him (the comedian) run the election, he's gonna win...
An elected Secretary of State might be a better solution than the current polticized situation
March 8th, 2010 at 11:41 am
Keahi:
You must be slow if you cannot catch your shadow. Try chasing your tale.
March 8th, 2010 at 11:45 am
I'm not wedded to this as the only possible solution, but I'd love to hear workable ideas other than "we will always have problems, of one magnitude or another, in elections." To me, a status quo in which we're six months from the primary election and the elections office has no money, no voting machines, short staff, an acting chief elections officer, a fumbling commission and meddling legislators trying to dictate what to do doesn't cut it. I don't recall any of these problems when the LG ran elections, nor any credible charges of rigging. We fixed something that wasn't broke and now it is.
March 8th, 2010 at 12:34 pm
I don't mind voting anyway possible, I just don't like the idea my vote may not count because of some error. If I am the deciding vote.
Our leaders should listen to what people have to say. May or may not make sense. They should. Sometimes voters see the other side of issues where politicians only see the front. Cut the red tape and just Nike.
March 8th, 2010 at 12:36 pm
Dave,
I'm with you on this one.
March 8th, 2010 at 4:44 pm
To separate the electoral functions from legislative and admin politics, and provide it with an adequate budget to both educate and run a cutting edge electoral system, perhaps we should dedicate a tiny percentage of the state budget (ala the arts CIP fund) for elections so that elections are never compromised beause of lack of funds. We desperately need more civic literacy both for youth and adults. I can imagine segregating the office further from the fray, with the kind of financial independence we offer the Auditor. The current "system" is not broken, but it IS compromised by begging for $$$. It should not be held hostage. Perhaps we should administratively attach it to the UH, or RCUH. Among its functions could be a much broader responsibility to educate the public.
March 9th, 2010 at 12:45 am
Dave,
The problems you list are not unsurmontable. The Office of Elections has often awarded the contract for the voting system a few months prior to the primary. That's not good, but it is not a crisis.
The Office is starved of funds because the Governor wanted to force out Kevin Cronin. Had the Office been attached to the LG's office, how would "accountability" be improved? Would Lingle (or Aiona) have the power to fire Cronin directly? Or would they still have to starve him out? If they had the authority to fire him, wouldn't that constitute much greater "political interference" that a hearing of a House committee questioning the need for an early special election?
The voting machine contract was delayed primarily because the Office of Elections had failed to promulgate administrative rules governing the use of electronic voting machines. Would the rules have been promulgated earlier or the lawsuit not filed if the Office were in the LG's office?
I don't see how your "solution" actually solves any of the problems you have listed.
So what is the solution? There is no panacea, but good governance requires transparency and "eternal vigilance" by the media, citizens groups and interested parties. The actual running of elections are closely monitored by official observers, who have more authority and accessibility than those in almost any other locale. Hawaii's elections are actually run pretty well. I say that as one of the most vocal critics of the Office, but one who has been in contact with similar activists from across the country. They are amazed at our ability to ask questions and examine each step of the elections process. You want a "solution"? We need MORE people to volunteer as election observers. It should be viewed as a responsiblity akin to jury duty.
The Election Commission, which you characterize as "fumbling," consists of well-intended people appointed by elected officials from both parties. They have no budget of their own and can rarely afford to come together to meet on election matters. The Sunshine Law bars them from talking about election-related matters outside of the infrequent meetings. They are intelligent lay people who rely upon the Office of Elections for their understanding of election-related matters. Their meetings are open to public input and suggestions, but few citizens bother to show up. We need more people monitoring the meetings of the Election Commission. (Heck, the Republican Party rarely even bothers to send a representative.)
The commisioners hestitate to fulfill their statutory duty to "advise the Chief Elections Officer" because they do not want to be seen as "micro-managing" the Office. To my eyes, the current commission is over-correcting for an earlier commission, some of whose members were extremely partisan and regularly "beat up" on Dwayne Yoshina, often unfairly and in the press.
Sorry I have no panacea to offer. All I can advise is an insistence that the voting process be verifiable, the procurement process be transparent and the commission (and Office) be open to public questions and suggestions. All this requires a vigilant press, competitive political parties watching each other jealously, "good government" groups like the blessed League of Women Voters and the occasional gadfly, asking troublesome questions. Oh, and adequate funding.
Heck, this sounds like the way to ensure good performance from any government agency. Why should elections be any different?
Jim Shon is a flexible, creative public servant, often able to "think outside the box" in examining problems. But Jim, forgive me if the management of UH (or RCUH) do not inspire me with a confidence they would run elections better than they currently handle higher education.
March 9th, 2010 at 5:48 am
David, I hear you about Ariyoshi but how about an example from, say, the last 30 years? After all, there's been close elections since then. Besides, the perception of having an elected official oversee an election not to mention being partisan does raise eyebrows.
This is why the office was spun off to begin with. I think the key is who is hired to run the office. If Cronin was competent, I don't think you would have written anything about this. Or have you in the last 30 or 40 years?
March 9th, 2010 at 9:09 am
@Charles Are you kidding? There was constant elections controversy under Dwayne, which is why he was elbowed out fairly or not and Cronin brought in. There wasn't that kind of turmoil in the office under the LG, which is why there so few examples.
@Bart, if it's so surmountable, then why aren't we surmounting it? I do like Jim's idea of giving the elections office some kind of dedicated source of funding to enhance ability to plan and independence from the pols running the budget.
March 15th, 2010 at 3:57 pm
David, the controversy over Dwayne had far more to do with his style and the commissioners who were there at that time.