Unless overturned by an as-yet-to-be-requested recount, City Councilmember Trevor Ozawa has been reelected by a 22-vote margin, despite a strong challenge from former legislator Tommy Waters.
That’s 22 votes out of 36,894 votes cast!
Hawaii News Now reported this week that Waters is preparing to ask the Hawaii Supreme Court to order a recount, but that looks like a long shot at this point in time.
So what accounts for Ozawa’s winning margin?
I think this is one of those instances where the best advice is to follow the money.
A quick check with the candidates reports to the Campaign Spending Commission shows that Ozawa had a huge lead in campaign cash.
It wasn’t even close.
Ozawa raised more than 2.5 times the amount taken in by Waters’ campaign through October 22, and outspent the challenger by more than 3-1.
With that large a fundraising advantage, it’s a wonder that Waters was able to come within a handful of votes of the incumbent.
The final reports showing contribution and expenditure totals through the day of the General Election are due on December 6. I expect that, if anything, they’ll increase the financial gap between the two candidates.
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Thank you for posting this Ian. The amounts listed above do not include the late contributions report dated 11/5/18 in which Ozawa received $27,750 and Waters $8,500 if I added correctly.
Ideally, rhe winning strategy should be developing the best platform that suits the people’s needs. This reflects the spirt in which government was created. The reality is that winning has very little to do with that. It’s fundraising. Who has the most money to spend wins over 90% of the time. How do you fundraise effectively? Make promises to special interests. Then we spend the next four years grumblinguabout the behavior of the beholden lawmaker like we don’t understand why he or she isn’t representing the people. This is the real change we need to make. The current system is beyond broken.
I would appreciate if an investigative reporter from Star-Advertiser or Civil Beat would do a thorough study of how the Office of Elections actually counts the votes. The recounts in Florida brought all sorts of issues to the surface. For example: We have a massively increasing number of voters who vote absentee. Does somebody at OE (Office of Elections) actually compare the signature on every envelope against the signature on file to be sure they are the same? Do they start doing those verifications before the actual “election day”? If there’s a discrepancy, does the voter get a phone call to resolve the problem? How does OE deal with signature-matching regarding absentee ballots which voters never mailed in but instead brought in person to the polling place on election day? Those get sent to OE only an hour or so after the polls have closed, when boxes full of everything get sent to OE by taxicab. Do absentee ballots mailed in get opened and run through the counting machine several days before “election day” so that if the voter makes an error (such as voting for too many candidates in the same contest) then that voter will get a phone call or a chance to “spoil” the ballot and get a new one (that’s what happens if a voter comes in person and has an error on his ballot — the machine kicks it out with an error message, and helpful elections officials will help the voter figure out what the problem is if the voter asks for help). For both the primary and general elections this year, I was an elections official and spent the entire day sitting near the machine where voters insert their ballots, and there were dozens of voters who had “over votes” or other problems which caused the machine to kick back their ballots, especially on Primary Election day when voters get confused about the restriction to vote only in a single political party; and some of those voters needed careful explanations of what they did incorrectly, or how a single ink dot where a pen had been “rested” might be seen by the machine as an attempted vote.
Ken
Ditto for me… great points you raise!
Ken’s post contains many good questions that deserves answers….questions that the local news folks should be asking elections chief Scott Nago, but aren’t. I know I’m not the only person who thinks of the current crop of reporters as being broadcast celebrities rather than true journalists. On the bright side, Florida election officials in Broward & Palm Beach counties are sure making Nago’s job performance look absolutely stellar in comparison!