A very bizarre situation is occurring right now in the Democratic U.S. Senate primary in Hawaii, where last Saturday’s Election Day was disrupted by a hurricane. While voting was successfully carried out in most of the state’s precincts, 2 out of 247 were unable to open for voting due to the storm.
The result is that the contentious U.S. Senate primary race between incumbent, recently appointed, Democratic Sen. Brian Schatz and his challenger Colleen Hanabusa now stands with a little more than 1,600 votes between them out of about 225,000 cast, according to the “too close to call” reported results of those who voted on Saturday.
But the election is now being extended to allow those 2 precincts — and only those two precincts — to vote this Saturday.
The approximately 7,000 or so voters from those two precincts will determine the final results of the primary — and probably the next U.S. Senator from Hawaii — as Rachel Maddow explains below, while appropriately asking: “Is that fair? And if that isn’t fair, what would be fair?…Is holding a new election for just those two precincts fair to either candidate? Does it advantage one or the other of them? Should we expect more voters to go vote now that they know just how important their votes are?”…
I don’t pretend to have any answers to the question of “fairness” in this bizarre case, but I’d love to hear your thoughts. The current solution, as unfair as it seems to be, at least seems to be equally unfair to everybody, for whatever that may be worth.
One wonders, however, if Hawaii had a polling place Photo ID restriction, how many voters wouldn’t be able to vote at all simply because all of their belongs were lost in the storm? That particular point, while a seemingly exceptional circumstance here, isn’t actually all that exceptional. Remember when, for example, in 2012, Hurricane Sandy threatened the Presidential election in NJ, NY, CT, PA, VA and OH?
You used the term “bizarre” twice. I don’t know what’s so bizarre about the circumstances. Out of the ordinary, but nothing remotely “bizarre.” A hurricane hit the area of these two precincts — roads were blocked by fallen trees, electricity was out, the polling places were closed. These voters have the same right to vote as anyone else in the state of Hawaii. They are being given the opportunity to vote a week later. The only bizarre, out-of-nowhere thing is your comment about people’s photo ID’s being “lost in the storm.” Huh?
Sen. Schatz was favored by a wide margin in those two precincts before the election, so it’s inconceivable, really, that Hanabusa has any hope of coming from 1600 votes behind to win.
The election is basically over, but the people hit by hurricane Iselle have a right to cast their votes.
I don’t have any problem with the election being extended to include those who couldn’t vote due to “god’s hand”… however, I don’t think that the results of the Tuesday voting should have been released. That is the sand in the vaseline. Even better, they should have not counted any votes until all votes were cast. Who could have/should have made that decision and why did they not make it? I think it’s a no-brainer.
Edward Fallon @ 1:
Having two precincts in one state with the power to decide (most likely) who will be the next U.S. Senator from Hawaii is incredibly bizarre. As is the fact that an election is being held over for another week for a special day of voting.
I’m not against it, mind you, but yes, it’s bizarre and, perhaps, unprecedented (at least to my knowledge). All of it going on as the towns are cleaning up from a hurricane, and candidates are both helping and campaigning in the bargain…yes, sorry, it’s really bizarre! 🙂
Soul Rebel @ 2:
I haven’t checked the election code, but I suspect the law likely requires counting and release of results after polls close. If the decision to extend the voting for those two precincts didn’t happen until after the normal close-of-polls stuff was done, that would explain the release of results before all voting was concluded.
That said, you’re absolutely right, they should not have released the results if there was a way to avoid doing so legally.
It is somewhat reminiscent of national elections whereby the polls on the east coast close before those on the west coast and exit polls are all over the news before the rest of the country has voted.
Seems to me it isn’t fair for results to be released before some folks have voted. Would a second statewide election be fairer than just the 2 precincts? Way more expensive, certainly.
I agree with the comment above that results should not have been released until “all” voting was complete.