Hawaii Supreme Court denies Fevella’s appeal in contested West Oahu Senate race

News admin September 17, 2026 0 Comments

Hawaii Supreme Court denies Fevella’s appeal in contested West Oahu Senate race

HONOLULU (HawaiiNewsNow) – The Hawaiʻi Supreme Court has denied incumbent state Sen. Kurt Fevella’s petition to challenge the tiebreaker results in a West Oʻahu Senate race because he filed after the statutory deadline.

In an opinion issued Wednesday, the high court said Fevella “failed to take timely steps to do so,” and did not satisfy the standard for an extraordinary writ — an order permitting a higher court to review lower court decisions.

During the Aug. 8 primary election, the Senate District 20 Republican primary between former state lawmaker Bob McDermott and Fevella ended in a tie, with each candidate receiving exactly 1,212 votes. McDermott was declared the winner following a drawing conducted under Hawaii Revised Statutes Section 11-157 of the Hawaii Revised Statutes.

Fevella filed his appeal on Friday, Sept. 4, nearly two weeks after the Aug. 24 election contest deadline.

In his initial filing, Fevella apologized for the delay and noted it was “new territory” for him. He pointed to the court’s earlier ruling ordering a new election for state House District 43, another tied Republican race between incumbent Rep. Kanani Souza and challenger Sheila Medeiros.

The Office of Elections initially declared Medeiros the winner following a random tie-breaker drawing on Aug. 15. However, the court threw out those results, finding that a two-ballot overage could have altered the outcome and that the tie-breaker method used by the state was legally invalid.

The high court noted Fevella could have requested election data proactively before the Aug. 24 deadline, as Souza did. Court records show Souza requested voting data on Aug. 17 and received an overage and underage report on Aug. 20.

The justices also said the court lacked adequate time to entertain petitions for extraordinary writs beyond the deadlines mandated by HRS 11-173.5, noting general election ballots must be sent to military and overseas voters by Friday, Sept. 18.