Voter registration for the special Congressional election closes on Thursday, and ballots are expected to be mailed around the first of May. With polls showing the race essentially a toss-up with the three major candidates all in range of victory, there’s a lot going on.

An unidentified “Democratic Committee” has been advertising for door to door canvassers to walk Honolulu neighborhoods in a “get out the vote” effort for the special election to fill the 1st Congressional District seat vacated by Neil Abercrombie.

The ads have run on Craigslist in several different categories–government, nonprofit, and general labor. The first ad appeared on April 5, and the last I found is dated April 9.

Make more money than sign waving or handing out flyers and have more fun! Work 15 hours a week or more and still be able to surf in the mornings.

A Democratic Committee is hiring paid canvassers to educate voters about the upcoming special election! Job duties include going door to door in neighborhoods, talking to voters, educating them about the procedures for mail-in balloting, and persuading them to vote in the special election. Shifts will be from 3 – 8pm M-F, and 10-6pm Sa/Su, and run through May 22nd. Reliable transportation is required. Compensation is $12/hour. To apply or get more information, email hawaiifield@me.com with a phone number

The first ad offered only $10/hour, so it sounds like the pay was upped in hopes of increasing the response.

Meanwhile, Firedoglake.com points to mailers attacking Ed Case and supporting Colleen Hanabusa being sent out by the AFL-CIO and ILWU.

The first mailer criticizes Case for supporting layoffs for public employees, cutting pensions, watering down benefits, privatizing health care and public employee jobs, and even weakening worker safety laws. The second mailer, from the ILWU, says “Ed Case will put your job at risk,” and hits him for wanting to exempt Hawaii from the Jones Act, “which ensures domestic vessels are built and crewed by American workers.” Both mailers tout Colleen Hanabusa as “the best candidate for working families.”

AFL-CIO spokesman Eddie Vale tells FDL News that this is only the beginning of a continuing campaign between now and the election, including mail, phone banks, canvassing and GOTV support. “For us the decision was based on support for working families, we think Hanabusa will be much better on those,” Vale said in an email exchange.

Other unions have also endorsed Hanabusa and are turning out members to support her campaign, including District Council 50 of the International Union of Painters and Allied Trades, Hawaii State Teachers Association, Hawaii Government Employees Association (which inexplicably puts information about its endorsement behind a “members only” firewall on its web site).

The aggressive field work could make a difference in the extremely tight race.

According to an article in The Nation last year:

Political scientists Alan Gerber and Donald Green, experts on election turnout, conducted an experiment in 1998 with voters in New Haven, Connecticut, showing that person-to-person canvassing when the canvassers are ethnically and demographically matched to voters can increase turnout by 10 percent with a single contact and a nonpartisan message.

In an earlier post, FDL referred to Case as ” the moderate LieberDem who is hated by the state political establishment,” and went on to observe:

A few months ago, it was put to me that Case and Djou would split the center-right vote, with Hanabusa winning the majority. That could still happen – I wouldn’t be at all surprised with the DCCC misreading the electorate. But their bigfooting into races should definitely cause some worry (especially because they’d have a free shot to pick off Djou in November, if he manages a fluke victory).

If you’re interested, here are answers to questions put to Hanabusa and Case by Progressive Democrats of Hawaii.

And here’s a recent Roll Call article on polling being done by both national political parties, highlighting the special difficulties of polling in Hawaii.