Hawaii primaries undecided after recount; invalid ballots could swing results
HONOLULU (HawaiiNewsNow) – A 13-hour automatic recount Tuesday lasted into the night, and the results, announced at 10 p.m., revealed no change in two of Hawaii’s closest legislative primary races.
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In the Senate District 20 Republican primary, Bob McDermott maintains a seven-vote lead over incumbent Kurt Fevella.
In the House District 43 Republican primary, incumbent Kanani Souza still leads challenger Sheila Medeiros by a single vote.
Invalid ballots could decide both races
Both contests remain unresolved as attention turns to more than 1,151 Oahu ballots flagged as invalid due to signature issues on the outside envelope.
The unopened, unscanned ballots are sitting in the county clerk’s office waiting to be “cured,” or corrected, by voters.
Those voters were notified by mail and have three options to resolve the issue: signing online with a smartphone, appearing in person at the clerk’s office, or responding by mail.
A ballot will not be counted until the signature is verified.
“They’ve already voted. Something was wrong with their envelope, either their signature didn’t match or it was missing,” said Hawaii Chief Election Officer Scott Nago. “So they now have the opportunity to either cure that or not. So if they do cure, we count those ballots.”
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Deadline is Friday at 4:30 p.m.
Nago said cured ballots will not be forwarded for counting until the resolution period closes.
“The cured ballots will come to us at the end of the period, which is Friday, 4:30 p.m.,” he said.
In the district covering the Souza-Medeiros race, there are 36 invalid ballots waiting to be opened — enough to swing the current one-vote lead.
In the Fevella-McDermott district, 90 ballots need to be cured — also enough to change the outcome.
HNN political analyst Colin Moore said the process is deliberate.
“They try to cure any ballots where the signature doesn’t match,” Moore said. “And so that’s a little bit of a process. I mean, it’s very methodical, very careful — just to make sure that every ballot is counted correctly and accurately.”
Moore added that close races are not unusual.
“But this does go to show, we always say it and it sounds like a cliche, but every vote matters,” Moore said.
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Ballots that are not cured by the Friday deadline will not be counted.
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