November 7, 2012.  

Today Hawaii State Election officials apologized  "to all voters who were impacted by the insufficient amount of ballots at various polling places across the City and County of Honolulu. This will not happen again."  This statement was issued as part of a response to the fallout from complaints the agency received from at least twenty-four polling places on Oahu reporting a shortage of ballots.  Most of the effected polling places were located in Waimanalo, Wainanae and East Honolulu.     It is clear the shortage was triggered by the decision by Scott Nago, the head of the Office of Elections, to "order less ballots".  What isn't clear is the lack of a logical explanation as to why specifically those twenty-four out of a total of fifty-one polling places were effected.  (See Nago's full statement here.)

For months we have been attempting to get the Office of Elections to appear on The Carroll Cox Show to discuss voter registration, the voting process,  and in particular, voting for the homeless, the blind and others with special needs. Unfortunately, the agency head, Scott Nago, could not find the time to participate, or even appoint one of his staff to do so.  

Now, it comes as no surprise that twenty-four polling places were short of ballots. (See list here.)  We have received information suggesting many of the areas effected were ones where former Governor Ben Cayetano received a large number of votes, and the lack of ballots could possibly have influenced the outcome of that race, as well as some close precinct races.  Therefore, we believe the ballot shortage borders on voter fraud, and may have been part of a greater conspiracy to abridge the voting rights of residents in those areas in order to influence the outcome of the race in favor of rail.    We also believe that no one should have been denied their right to vote, or forced to rush at a single voting machine,  because the Office of Elections could not do their job.    

  Because there are a number of checks and balances within the Office of Elections,  including detailed instructions on handling ballots for  Delivery and Collection personnel and the polling place Chairpersons,  they should have detected the shortages at all levels.   Even more egregious, they also should have been better prepared to get additional ballots to polling places that were running low as rapidly as possible, not hours after being notified.   For your review, we have attached a copy of the "2012 Delivery & Collection (DC) Manual" that includes all the instructions and rules for handling ballots.  

Voter fraud or not,  incidents of ballot shortages are unacceptable.   Free people have been deprived of their right to vote.   We believe that  the Office of Elections should be investigated and whoever is responsible be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.    There was a big investigation and lengthy hearings regarding Big Island procedures after the primary.  This is much bigger, and much more serious.     

We will be providing more information as we continue to investigate this matter.   If you have information that will help bring transparency to this matter please contact us at carroll@carrollcox.com or call 808-782-6627. 

Please tune in this Sunday, November 11,  to the CARROLL COX SHOW on KWAI, 1080 AM,  from 8 to 10 am, for more information.