Elections Office

[Guest]

I blame her because she was in charge. I blame her boss because he was in charge. I blame the both of them for ignoring this situation and issuing statement after statement of denial of problems claiming "everything is fine, everything is good."

And now, she is blaming everything and everyone – except herself.

You see Mr. Tucker; I take the right to elect our political leaders very seriously. Many many many sons and daughters have died for ALL of us to have this ability and right. I find what happened in this election at the DIRECT hands of this Clerk and the Chairman to be the absolute most distasteful thing ever done to any form of democracy. Including semen stains on dresses, apartment break-ins that get covered up – or mandated health care.

I would find it very interesting to see what your views would have been if the exact same election debacle took place and James Weatherford was the appointed clerk. I am quite sure your responses would be very close to mine – you know – whose comments you find so distasteful.

Again, about the only thing I can find appropriate here is their immediate resignations. The tax payer really deserves that much more than anything else these two captains of ineptness can effectively say and /or do.

[Guest]

1. Does disruption in the Clerk/Election office benefit anyone?

YES

2. If so, who?

ALL CANDIDATES DESERVING A FAIR UNQUESTIONED ELECTION ALONG WITH ALL CITIZENS DESERVING A FAIR AND UNQUESTIONED OUTCOME


3. If who is known does that person(s) have access and ability to
disrupt the performance of the office?

YES. ONE OF THE CANDIDATES FOR ELECTED OFFICE WAS ONE OF THE TWO WHO CAUSED AND/OR ALLOWED TO BE CAUSED THE DISRUPTION LAST SATURDAY.

4. Did the Clerk make mistakes or contribute to the disruption?

YES

5. If so what mistakes? Specifically.

THE STATE REPORT ARTICULATED THAT VERY WELL. IF YOU NEED, I COULD GO BACK AND CUT AND PASTE THEIR RESPONSE HERE – I WOULD ASSUME YOU HAVE READ THE REPORT ALREADY.

[Rob Tucker]

Ken,

Please explain (without all caps) your response to #2. How does disruption of the Election Office benefit all candidates?

#3. Who are you talking about?

You are sounding a little irrational, no offense intended. I would like to discuss the issues.

For example.... it occurs to me that one primary beneficiary of the disruption of the Elections Office is Billy Kenoi. Great timing
in bringing possible discredit to a frequent critic and challenger for his job. Another beneficiary could be staffers that were nose out of joint over some previous firings. Another beneficiary could be the public employees union which doesn't generally care for "house cleaning" in public offices. Unions and Kenoi are and have been strongly supportive of each other.

I am not suggesting in this that the Clerk did not make any mistakes. I am increasingly of the opinion that the Clerk's mistakes were exploited skillfully to make her look bad and yet not quite cross the line in discrediting the primary results.

[Kelena]

We simply cannot have the appearance of impropriety in that office and that is what we have now, and not on the part of the workers but on the part of the boss. The State has already concluded that her conduct in that office is below the standard that we should expect and I am inclined to agree. She fired long term employees without considering some form of progressive discipline, basically declaring war on her own staff. While that firing may be facially justified (and we know that in at least one instance that is questionable). she should have asked if it is in the best interests of the voters to decimate the corporate knowledge in her office in an election year, for issues that do not relate to the function of elections.

Then she mangled the issuance of the yellow cards and surprised a contract worker in Kona by letting her go on the eve of an election. And then polling places opened late, disenfranchising working voters. She was unable to account for this and, according to the State's report, undermined the confidence in the election.

We need to have confidence in our elections, which means a functioning Elections office. In a time when voter rights are under attack and when voters have been actively disenfranchised in a number of states, we simply cannot allow it to occur here. And we have no time to let her learn on the job.

The State has already established that she is incompetent for her current position. The governor had to INTERVENE in our election and keep polling places open, without even being sure which ones needed to stay open longer. The question of whom this incompetence benefits is an interesting one. I don't want to find out the answer. We should never be in a position where we are wondering which candidate election chaos benefits or whether we are talking about negligence or active interference. We want to AVOID having to ask such questions in the first place by having a Clerk that is not justifiably called on the carpet by the State. She should resign forthwith and every action she has taken heretofore should be reconsidered, up to and including the firing of the elections office workers.

Mr. Yagong should step out of the way on this.

[Rob Tucker]

Kelena,

No where have I seen any explanation of how Jamae Kawauchi personally caused several polls from opening on time. Those late openings were in the hands of one or (I assume) more persons. So I am sorry if I would like to understand the whole picture and not just have one person who may be a very, very convenient scapegoat.

There has long been no shortage of funny business in county politics over the years. The current issue with the Clerk's Office would actually be the exception if there wasn't anything contrived about it. I can't figure out how the mess could be entirely accidental, coincidental or due solely to the incompetence of one person. Too many hands involved in too many places.

Back in 2000 there was a council race that turned in the middle of the night. We never got any explanation of why HPP's precinct ballots took 12 hours to make it from HPP to Hilo and the race result changed as a result. So forgive me if I am less than completely trustful of convenient simplistic explanations.

[Guest]

#2 It benefits the candidates by putting into question the results. One candidate still may challenge the results. This could lead to costly outcomes - funded of course, by the tax payer.

#3. Yagong.

As for sounding irrational, well that’s your opinion. I find this whole debacle irrational in its very conception. I further think the defense of this clerk and her boss is more irrational than I could ever be!

I will not however, bode into your subtle attempt at claiming sabotage by the election workers. If one were however, to drive down that road, I would say it’s safe to say that this could have equally been a sabotage effort led by the Chairman in his bid to be elected mayor.

Fortunately he lost with such a significant number of votes that no matter how bad ANYONE screwed up this election it becomes a moot point. Just as blaming the election workers is as well.

[Rene Siracusa]

Rob - Perhaps you missed the part that in the past the poll boxes were packed a week before the election, but this time they were packed the night before. Sounds like a last minute rush job, and that's when errors usually happen.

Did you also note that the poll box for "Kahakai", which is really Keonepoko El, ended up on the Kona side and had to be hand delivered to Keonepoko? How did it end up in Kona? Where was the oversight? As a result, Keonepoko didn't open until 8:40 and ended up having the lowest voter turnout. Do you think that's a coincidence? I don't. I think the voters who arrived between 7 am and 8:30 or so never returned - probably never even learned about the extended hours until it was too late. Would that number of voters have made a signficant change in the District 4 results? Who knows? Unless they do a 100% mail-in repeat for that precinct we will never know. Maybe Fred would have had a bigger lead, or no lead at all; Maybe James would have beat out Greggor. That many votes could have changed the outcome. If I was one of those candidates I would be asking for a special election for that polling place.If I was a D. 4 voter I would be asking for that too.

[Rob Tucker]

Rene,
What I am saying primarily is that there were too many hands on too many election actions for a single bullet theory to hold up. To the best of my knowledge most all of the staff had election experience.

[JerryCarr]

quote:

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Originally posted by Rene Siracusa



Did you also note that the poll box for "Kahakai", which is really Keonepoko El, ended up on the Kona side and had to be hand delivered to Keonepoko? How did it end up in Kona? Where was the oversight? As a result, Keonepoko didn't open until 8:40 and ended up having the lowest voter turnout. Do you think that's a coincidence? I don't. I think the voters who arrived between 7 am and 8:30 or so never returned - probably never even learned about the extended hours until it was too late. Would that number of voters have made a signficant change in the District 4 results? Who knows? Unless they do a 100% mail-in repeat for that precinct we will never know. Maybe Fred would have had a bigger lead, or no lead at all; Maybe James would have beat out Greggor. That many votes could have changed the outcome. If I was one of those candidates I would be asking for a special election for that polling place.If I was a D. 4 voter I would be asking for that too.

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Royall is right. The only voting place that opened late in District 4 was the HPP Community Center, and it opened 10 minutes late. Having voted there on several occasions, I can honestly say that anyone who didn't allow a 10 minute margin of error for that location was either unrealistic or not serious about voting. In no way did this affect the outcome.

[Rene Siracusa]

Royall is right - I was wrong. At least about confusing Kahakai El (W. HI. polling place) with Keonepoko El on Kahakai Blvd. Kala mai.

The Tribune-Herald did report, however, that although the poll boxes are usually packed about a week beforehand, this time they were packed the night before. That suggests a rush job, and rush jobs are when mistakes happen. No sabotage necessary.

I worked with Jamae and Pat Nakamoto both when I chaired the Redistricting Commission. Both of them were seemingly very aware of the process and Jamae especially was a real nit-picker for following the rules in detail. So it's hard to imagine that she could suddenly get so sloppy in her work as the released info so far would seem to suggest. On the other hand, she had no previous election experience, got the one person who DID out of the way without going through the mandated civil service process or allowing Pat the opportunity to address the charges against her - and the punishment (firing) did not fit the "crime". Then, instead of asking for help, she kept assuring everyone that everything was OK and under control. Was this a coverup or did she really NOT know that things were not going right?

Rob's 8/18 post suggests that the voter duplicates happened on Pat's watch, and that therefore Jamae should not be blamed for that. However, I was a duplicate and that happened between end July and 8/10 - definitely on Jamae's watch. Perhaps it's the process that needs to be tweaked to prevent that from recurring.