Tag: Hawaii

HI

  • Honolulu voting proposal could broaden participation in city elections

    | University of Hawaiʻi System News |

    Honolulu voters will decide in November whether to adopt ranked-choice voting for mayoral, prosecuting attorney and City Council elections. The proposal would move the final decision in all contested city races to November, when voter turnout is typically higher, potentially broadening participation in choosing city officials, according to a new analysis from the University of Hawaiʻi Economic Research Organization (UHERO). Ranked-choice voting allows voters to rank candidates in order of preference.

    “Appeal to a broader range of voters”

    The analysis found that Honolulu turnout averaged about 40% of registered voters in August and 58% in November across the five election cycles from 2016 through 2024.

    Research reviewed in the report suggested ranked-choice voting may encourage candidates to appeal to a broader range of voters and may lead to less negative campaigns.

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  • Ranked choice voting in Honolulu, part 1: Analysis of a possible game change

    | Peter S Adler; PhD | Aloha State Daily |

    At the moment, ranked choice voting appears to have been used or has been approved for upcoming public elections in 49 U.S. jurisdictions, including 36 cities, three counties, and Maine and Alaska statewide. Several jurisdictions employ ranked choice voting ballots for military and overseas voters. Hawaiʻi Revised Statutes already requires ranked choice voting for federal elections held outside regularly scheduled primary or general election dates, and for special elections to fill vacant county council seats.

    “An important conceptual choice”

    Interestingly, ranked choice voting also appears outside government elections: About 100 American colleges and universities use it in some student-government elections. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences uses ranked ballots to determine most Oscar nominees; it also uses ranked-choice tabulation to select the Best Picture winner. Ranked, point-based ballots also select the Heisman Trophy winner as well as that of Major League Baseball’s Cy Young Award.

    Question 5 will offer an important conceptual choice. If adopted, the proposal directs the city clerk to prepare rules and implement a public education program which clearly addresses important operational nuances, such as ballot design, recounts, certification procedures, and treatment of skipped rankings, ties, and exhausted ballots. The public should be able to see and comment on those rules before implementation, as Honolulu’s charter provides that public-facing administrative rules generally require public notice, a public hearing, and mayoral approval.

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  • Ranked Choice Voting Could Shake Up Honolulu Elections

    | Patti Epler | Honolulu Civil Beat |

    Honolulu voters are being asked to fundamentally change the way top city officials are elected in a major overhaul of the election system envisioned to give more candidates a better chance at public office and more voters the opportunity to decide who’s running the city.

    “Someone has to move first”

    Question No. 5 on Oʻahu ballots in the Nov. 3 election asks if the city should switch to a ranked choice voting system for mayor, City Council and prosecuting attorney. It would allow voters to consider as many as five candidates for each office in a single November election, when voter turnout is often double the number of people who vote in the August primary.

    “Someone has to move first,” Commissioner Trey Gordner told fellow commissioners in July when they voted 10-3 to move forward with the proposal. “I think it falls on the city to move first. It falls on voters to be clear that this is what they want, and for the state to react to that.”

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  • Voters in three cities will decide on ballot measures to implement ranked-choice voting in local elections on Nov. 3

    | Lara Bonatesta | Ballotpedia |

    On Nov. 3, voters in Irvine, California, Honolulu, Hawaii, and Longmont, Colorado, will decide on ballot measures that would require ranked-choice voting (RCV) in mayoral and city council elections. The measure in Honolulu would also require RCV to elect the city’s prosecuting attorney.

    “Six localities are scheduled to begin using RCV in 2027”

    Currently, three states use RCV statewide. Alaska and Maine use RCV in some federal and statewide elections, while Hawaii uses it for certain statewide elections. An additional five states have statutes authorizing the use of RCV for local elections.

    Forty-one localities in 14 states, as well as Washington, D.C., use or are scheduled to use RCV. Two of those localities, Washington, D.C. and Multnomah County, Oregon, began or will begin using RCV this year. An additional six localities are scheduled to begin using RCV in 2027.

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  • Beth Fukumoto: Who Doesn’t Like Ranked Choice Voting? Incumbents

    | Patti Epler | Honolulu Civil Beat |

    Ranked choice voting has only one real enemy in American politics, and it isn’t a political party. It’s incumbency.

    Ranked choice voting, which will be on Honolulu residents’ ballots in November, is one of the fastest growing voting reforms in the country. Seventeen cities, counties and states now use some version of ranked-choice voting, which advocates say broadens who can actually run and win. That’s precisely why the reform has gained powerful enemies.

    “More civil campaign culture”

    Honolulu Question 5, which will appear on Oʻahu ballots in November, is our best opportunity to implement a broadly applicable ranked choice voting system that could increase competition, build a more civil campaign culture and engage more voters.

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  • Breaking Down Ranked Choice Voting in the 2026 Wisconsin Primary

    | Larry Sandler | Milwaukee Magazine |

    Crowley edged Hong by half a percentage point in the crowded and chaotic Aug. 11 primary, in which four of seven candidates dropped out and Crowley jumped back in, all after ballots were printed and absentee voting was under way. The race’s wild trajectory left some voters wondering how the campaign might have played out in a ranked-choice voting system.

    Under the current system, you only get one vote. And in this state, if you cast an absentee ballot for a candidate who drops out, you can’t change your vote to someone who is still in the race.

    “68,000 votes that could have gone to someone whose candidacy was still alive”

    RCV advocates at Fair Vote call those “zombie votes.” Lt. Gov. Sara Rodriguez, former Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes and former state development chief Missy Hughes weren’t among the walking dead themselves, but their names remained undead on the Democratic primary ballot after they stopped running. Together they received more than 68,000 votes that could have gone to someone whose candidacy was still alive, in a race decided by less than 3,800 votes. With RCV, their supporters’ second or third choices could have counted toward the outcome. 

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