Two Campaign Spending Commission rules for the Big Island’s pilot project in comprehensive public election financing appear to unfairly discriminate against young voters and those in rural areas.
The pilot project provides for public financing of candidates for Hawaii County Council who qualify by getting $5 contributions from at least 200 registered voters in their district. This is the first election cycle since the pilot project was authorized.
The two problematic commission rules go beyond the requirements of state election law and appear to make it more difficult for certain registered voters to support the candidate of their choice.
The rules caused problems for 26-year old first-time County Council candidate Brittany Smart, who is running for the council seat representing Ka`u, parts of Puna, and South Kona.
Smart pointed to commission rules providing that those $5 qualifying contributions must be made by check or money order, and requiring each person to provide the physical street address of their residence in order for their contribution to be counted.
Smart says a lot of people in her rural district don’t have physical addresses.
“It’s common for people to say, ‘I live next to telephone pole 57 on Kamehameha Avenue,'” or by reference to other landmarks, Smart said.
The requirement goes beyond state election law (Section 11-15 HRS), which simply requires that a resident provide residence “information” in order to register to vote. Rules of the Office of Elections allow a person to provide either a “residence address or a description of the location of the residence….”
But the Campaign Spending Commission’s rule 3-162-1 provides that a description, even one accepted for purposes of voter registration, cannot be used to make a qualifying $5 contribution. If a registered voter can’t or fails to provide a street address, their contribution isn’t counted towards qualifying the candidate for public funding.
Smart said another commission rule which prohibits candidates from accepting the $5 contributions in cash also caused problems for voters in her district.
Many young people do not maintain checking accounts, and Smart said she found voters were reluctant to commit to paying the fee necessary to obtain a $5 money order.
It is generally legal, under state law, for campaigns to accept cash contributions, with the requirement that more than $100 in cash cannot be accepted without a receipt being issued.
There is no indication why stricter standards were applied to candidates trying to qualify for public funding during this pilot project.
Smart said these additional requirements made qualifying for public funding “a long haul.”
“It’s easier for incumbents,” Smart said, “because they already have a list of contributors from previous elections.”
Smart went door-to-door in the district. Her campaign eventually collected the $5 contributions from over 300 people, but the commission only accepted 209, just barely over the threshold of 200.
“But once I qualified, it’s been extremely useful,” Smart said.
It is not clear why the Campaign Spending Commission adopted rules for the pilot project that are stricter than those applying to voter registration or to campaigns generally, or whether the commission realized the discriminatory impact the rules have on certain voters or voters in certain districts.
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Usually pilot program rules are determined after input from many sources. It must have been determined that when handing out tax dollars, tax payers deserved to have a proper accounting procedure set up. That’s my take anyway.
But Hawaii election law has for decades had a provision for partial public financing. To qualify, candidates have to raise a certain amount of money in amounts of $100 or less. There are no similar restrictions on those qualifying contributions.
How does the public find out the list of donors for candidates? Mahalo.
Easy. Go to http://www.hawaii.gov/campaign and follow the links to candidate reports. Choose the “standard report”, enter the candidates name, and select the report.
Ian, thanks for reminding me to go to Ms Smart’s website. If I lived in that district I would work to get her elected, definitely.
That amount of money will go a long way towards her campaign in that area.
Her district 6 goes from South Kona through Ka’u and Volcano to Glenwood, very large and diverse. Good luck Brittany!
I wonder if comfortable shoes can be paid for from campaign funds?
It is interesting to watch how council members are elected in each county because it is done differently by their charters.
During a short trip to Big Island last week I couldn’t help but notice Ms. Smart’s cute campaign signs: B. Smart.
There are two points being made here:
1. The CSC, in order to verify the registered voter and facilitate more fluid and hassle-free admin process, is asking people who make qualifying contributions to provide a specific address.
2. The $5 check or money order requirements are unfair because a) some younger people don’t have checking accounts, and b) some people don’t want to pay the $1 it costs for a money order.
On point #1:
I think it’s a very astute observation that is made here: Yes, the state requirements for registering to vote are different from the requirements for someone giving a $5 to allow a candidate to use money from the HECF to run for office. I think the difference in these two things legitimizes the difference in requirements.
For the state election law, the purpose is to encourage people to register to vote and to make that process as easy as possible. For the Public Funding program, the goal is to guard against any candidate attempting to cheat the program. By requiring an actual address (numbers and all) and not a description (the house out by the telephone pole), the CSC is making sure someone doesn’t donate twice to the same candidate, and I imagine they are also working to make the administration documented and fluid, without too much gray area.
On point #2
Yes, getting the 200 signatures is not easy. Yes, it requires some people to even go get a money order and pay the $1 necessary to have it.
This qualifying process isn’t designed to be easy. Candidates will need to be creative, aggressive, and they’ll need to have a message and platform that inspires people and motivates them to even cough up an extra dollar. If the candidate is having trouble inspiring someone to give a dollar, then from my perspective that’s okay. The idea is to have a qualifying process that is not too easy but not completely unrealistic; and the numbers are holding up that way: eight new candidates filed for “intents” to run, some of those eight made legitimate attempts to qualify, two ended up qualifying, and one of those new candidates got a majority of votes in her district.
Nope, none of this is easy. Democracy never is.
That said, Voter Owned Hawaii will continue to listen to feedback. We might consider legislation that would add a debit or credit card feature, as long as the administrative requirements for the CSC are realistic and not too much. We need to make sure that the people administrating the program can do it in an efficient and effective way. If they can’t, it opens up the doors to misuse of the program. And if the program is misused by someone trying to cheat it, could you imagine the critics then?
But…as I pointed out earlier, candidates don’t face similar restrictions in how they gather qualifying contributions for partial public funding.
And you miss the point. This isn’t about the candidate, it is about the voter. If there are categories of voters who are less likely to have a checking account, or to know their street address, and are disqualified from supporting the candidate of their choice because of that, or must pay a fee to do so, that is a form of discrimination that needs to be examined very carefully. Being required pay for a money order in order to get behind a candidate of your choice different is like a poll tax, and it hits the young and the poor, while those of us who have checking accounts easily take part.
I believe I understand your points and they’re well-taken.
The problem as I see it is that if someone doesn’t know their address, nor willing to pay $1 to contribute to a candidate; I don’t think there’s a viable solution that will not open the doors to corruption on the part of the person gathering signatures.
If you can think of one, I am all ears.
Cash contributions simply won’t work.
At the end the day, the very essence of this program is clearly all about the voters, and it’s about reducing the corrupting influence of money from special interests like mainland architecture and development firms. County councilors need to be able to make decisions without having to take into account monetary donations from the wealthy elite.
There of course will be adjustments and improvements to be made to the comprehensive public funding program along the way. As for this issue you’re bringing up about the qualifying contributions, my opinion is that there needs to be a balance between encouraging participation and preventing corruption within the system itself. If there is a case where a candidate tries to cheat the system and it is not caught by the clerk or the Campaign Spending Commission, then I’m afraid that the backlash would be detrimental to the program.
Thank you again for your thoughtful and detailed insight as always.