The state Legislature will be asked to ban wildly popular mail-in voting and return to one-day, in-person voting as a majority of Hawaii Elections Commission members continue to echo election doubts repeated by President Donald Trump and his MAGA supporters since his 2020 reelection defeat.
The panel has spent hours in meetings debating the findings of two “permitted interactive groups” that a majority of commissioners believe cast enough doubt on Hawaii’s ballot security to call for the Legislature to ban mail-in voting across the state.
The agenda of the Elections Commission’s Oct. 1 meeting included discussion of whether to ask lawmakers to order an audit of Hawaii’s elections. But Commissioner Ralph Cushnie, who was appointed by the House Republican caucus leader and has repeatedly unsuccessfully sued elections chief Scott Nago, made a motion to instead ask the Legislature to go back to a single day of in-person voting. Cushnie’s motion passed by a 5-3 vote with Commission Chair Michael Curtis abstaining.
The commission also voted to request that the Legislature require all in-person voters to produce identification; however, military members and people with special needs would still be allowed to cast absentee ballots.
Cushnie argued that U.S. Postal Service expenses charged to the state for delivering mail-in ballots do not match official state election results. Commissioners have spent multiple meetings debating whether that’s enough suspicion to call for an audit, which morphed Oct. 1 into Cushnie’s proposal to reverse how Hawaii voters would cast their ballots.
At the same meeting, Cushnie was unsuccessful in getting the commission to fire Nago — an issue that also was not on the agenda but was previously proposed by Cushnie.
### 2024 Presidential Election Voting Trends in Hawaii
In the 2024 presidential election, which ultimately pitted Trump against Vice President Kamala Harris, 69.6% of registered Hawaii voters cast ballots for a total turnout of 579,784. Some 551,036 of them, or 95%, voted by mail. Only 28,748 voted in person, representing just 5% of all votes cast. On Oahu, only 17,204 voters, or 3.1%, voted in person.
Trump beat former first lady Hillary Clinton in 2016 and planted no seeds of doubt about his election victory. But since his 2020 loss to Joe Biden, Trump has repeated claims that the election was rigged and “stolen.”
Since 2020, Hawaii’s first Election Day results have represented all mail-in ballots, which has made it easier to identify voting trends early in the night, before the release of final results, which typically aren’t released until early the following morning.
Although small in numbers, those who vote in person across Hawaii have disrupted the timely release of election returns since 2020 because Hawaii election law prohibits the release of any results until the last person waiting in line by 7 p.m. has voted. Any eligible voter also can register on Election Day and vote, further holding up lines at polling places.
In 2020 and again in the 2022 midterm elections, long lines of in-person voters wrapped around Honolulu Hale and Kapolei Hale. Combined with similar long lines of voters across the state, the release of election results was delayed until the last person voted.
### Public Response and Advocacy for Mail-in Voting
Over the last several Elections Commission meetings, online viewership has increased as both supporters and skeptics of mail-in voting have logged in to track the commission’s debates, said Janet Mason of the Hawaii chapter of the League of Women Voters.
Mason told the commission that her organization supports mail-in voting and trusts its security.
“I don’t think people understand the damage that could be done,” Mason told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser. “Misinformation can undermine confidence in elections. I hope it doesn’t happen. The league is going to keep working on this, for sure.”
In a November letter to the editor to the Star-Advertiser, Chair Patricia Morrissey and Vice Chair James Gashel of the Statewide Elections Accessibility Needs Advisory Committee wrote that mail-in voting “is convenient for many voters and for seniors and people with disabilities, it is a lifeline to civic participation.
“We do not want civic participation to be diminished by an unnecessary decision to alter how we vote. The so-called ‘chain of custody’ argument is false. Voting by mail is as safe and likely safer than voting in person.
“The commission’s inclination to reduce our voting options flies in the face of common sense and is an affront to democracy itself. Voting by mail has never been associated with fraud.”
### Elections Chief Scott Nago’s Response
In response to the permitted interactive groups’ reports, Nago wrote in a 26-page response that, “This finding of the PIG Report attempts to relitigate the previous court cases brought forth by Commissioner Cushnie without providing new evidence and seeks to continue a debate, dismissing what has already been stated.”
The groups, Nago said, found “no evidence of systemic error or fraud. The election processes, to compile these records, are methodical and multi-layered for transparency, accuracy, integrity, and security.”
As Trump and his supporters continue to press his unsubstantiated claims of election fraud, unpaid volunteer Hawaii Republican election observers have consistently told the Star-Advertiser over each of the last several election cycles that they have not seen any evidence of election interference or fraud as mail-in ballots are opened and counted at the state Capitol.
In his response to the permitted interactive groups’ reports, Nago wrote that “the public is invited to volunteer as a counting center official or official observer to experience the electoral process and the care and time involved in opening the valid return identification envelopes then scanning and securing the voted ballots.”
“Further still, voters can verify for themselves that the ballot they voted and secured in their personalized return identification envelope has been accepted to be counted.”
Nago also said that Hawaii’s election results are federally certified by the U.S. Election Assistance Commission, which establishes testing system guidelines and authorizes test laboratories.
“These test laboratories are independent and review the hardware, software, and audit logs of the system,” he said.
### Political Analysis and Future Outlook
Political analyst Neal Milner was surprised by what he called the Elections Commission’s “lopsided” 5-3 vote that he said “reflects the major superstition that Trump has pushed.” Election skepticism, Milner said, has “moved from a crank idea to a Republican Party idea.”
Should the Legislature decide to require in-person voting for the 2026 mid-term elections, Milner said it could discourage voter turnout, especially among voters with ethnic backgrounds who may be intimidated by federal immigration enforcement tactics to detain anyone they believe may be in the country illegally, even U.S. citizens and sometimes with no probable cause.
During the ongoing Immigration and Customs Enforcement crackdown, Milner said calls to 911 in Chicago are already down “because people are afraid of the possibility that ICE is going to show up.”
He called the odds of the Democratic-dominated Hawaii Legislature banning mail-in ballots during the 2026 legislative session that begins in January “slim to none — more on the none side.”
The Elections Commission needs either a state senator or House representative to introduce a bill on its behalf. Neither Senate President Ron Kouchi nor House Speaker Nadine Nakamura, both Democrats, responded to requests for comment about whether they expect a bill to be introduced in next year’s session.
https://www.staradvertiser.com/2025/11/09/hawaii-news/skeptics-to-ask-legislature-to-ban-mail-in-voting-in-hawaii/
