Hawaii’s caucusers can vote via mail

Official says Iowa chaos won’t change party plans

HONOLULU — To avoid long lines, Democratic Party members in Hawaii will be able to use mail-in ballots to select their choices for this year’s presidential caucuses.

The party plans to mail ballots to registered Democrats during the first week of March.

Democrats also may vote in person on April 4 at one of 21 polling sites around the state. The party will allow same-day party enrollment at polling places.

“We’re trying to make the intake process fast to avoid long lines,” said Kate Stanley, the party’s interim chairwoman.

The party is calling the procedure a party-run presidential primary because, unlike typical caucuses, it won’t feature people discussing their selections at meetings. Instead, members will vote by paper ballot. But unlike primaries, which are generally run by state and local governments, the party will be in charge.

Voters will mark their top three choices on paper ballots, which will be counted by scanning machines.

Hawaii Democrats have hired a contractor, Merriman River Group, to handle aspects of the election, including designing the vote-by-mail package and transporting ballots from polling sites to scanning sites.

Hawaii Democrats aren’t changing their plans after technical glitches at the Iowa caucus this month led to a dayslong delay in reporting the results, inconsistencies in numbers and no clear winner.

“It’s helped us focus our attention to make sure we’re comfortable with what we’ve decided to do. And we’re sticking with what we’ve decided to do,” Stanley said.

Hawaii Republicans canceled their presidential caucuses after President Donald Trump was the only candidate to declare for the party ballot by a December deadline.

The ease of voting by mail may boost participation, but turnout is difficult to predict, Stanley said. The state Democratic party currently has 65,000 members.

Only candidates receiving at least 15 percent of the votes cast in a given congressional district will be allocated delegates. Votes for candidates who don’t receive at least 15 percent will be redistributed to voters’ second-ranked choices, starting with the candidate who received the lowest number of votes.

The outcome of the vote will determine the allocation of 24 delegates and two alternates to the Democratic National Convention. Hawaii will have another nine automatic delegates, who won’t vote on the first ballot at the national convention.

Kate Stanley