I just never know what I’m going to run across while going through the periodic ritual of checking the regular spots for possible news.
Yesterday I took a look at recent opinions from the Hawaii Supreme Court and Intermediate Court of Appeals, which included several election-related cases that had been disposed of, and one caught my eye.
It seems that Richard Y. Kim, one of the “minor” candidates for governor in the Democratic primary, believes he actually won the primary but was robbed of the victory by misconduct and errors on the part of the Office of Elections.
This isn’t his first time around the block, as he was also on the Democratic primary ballot in 2018, garnered just 1,576 votes, and responded with several election-related lawsuits against the Office of Elections and Gov. David Ige.
Kim he is a dentist and graduate of Columbia University in New York. He reported receiving two campaign contributions for a total of $450, and spent a total of $973.82 on his campaign. The candidate financial disclosure filed with the State Ethics Commission reported Kim had no earned income in the past year, owns no property, has an Ameritrade account worth between $10,000 and $25,000, and has debts of at least $45,000 but less than $100,000.
Kim, in his 2022 complaint filed with the Hawaii Supreme Court, said it was “impossible” that he received only the 985 votes statewide reported by the Office of Elections, and went on to cite “many facts and evidence” to support his position. I’m afraid these were not made with tongue firmly in cheek.
• Kim said his campaign website “has attracted 8,967 people, with over 32,000 views on my 706 posts, since 2017,” and that his Facebook account has “almost 1,500” followers.
• He argues that pre-election media polls would have had different results if his name had not been omitted. He insinuates he was overlooked in the polls because he has called for “media reform.”
• Kim says he “heavily invested his campaign in sign waving in the last two months of the primary election,” and “believes he has thrown ‘Shaka’ blessings to tens of thousands passing cars, probably at more than 100,000 people. Each time, he received roughly 5-30% honking (on average), and many more numerous hands waving, Shakas back, and head lights turned on and off, from the passing cars.
• Kim complained he had been blocked from commenting on Josh Green’s official Lt. Gov page on Facebook, and blocked by the Star-Advertiser from commenting on their “Spotlight Hawaii” live program, which he described as examples of “voter suppressions.”
Kim blames computer manipulation of the results for his loss, and said he believes “the vote counting by the computer must have been compromised due to such simple computer programming manipulation on his name on the democratic ballots, for example, by having moved the decimal to 0.01 or 1/100 and only counted as if he received 1% of the actual votes that he received on the ballots.”
He then alleges additional computer misdeeds shifted 99% of his vote to Lt. Gov. Josh Green, which left Green the runaway winner in the primary.
Without the alleged computer misdeeds, Kim says he would have received 985,000 votes, 38.7% of the Democratic votes, with Green tallying just 23.2%.
It took the Hawaii Supreme Court just a few days to review Kim’s complaint. The court’s 10-page Findings Of Fact, Conclusions Of Law, And Judgment conclude it was “based on speculation or unreasonable inferences from the evidence submitted in support,” and raised “no genuine issue of material fact related to Kim’s election contest.”
The court’s opinion provides a concise review of the laws governing election challenges and what standards must be met for such a challenge to be successful. Short version–it’s a high bar.
And so goes the democratic process.
