Voter Registration

 Fact: Election officials do not release sensitive personal identifying information such as your Social Security Number, Hawai'i Driver License, or Hawaii State ID information through public information lists. 

It is true that under Hawai'i law, certain voter registration data is available for public record.  This includes information such as your name and address.  However, this data can only be obtained through an official request to the County Elections Division and can only be used for election related purposes.

As such, receiving campaign materials or being contacted by a political candidate is not an indication that voter registration data has been hacked, illegally obtained, or is in the hands of bad actors.

Fact: Voters do not need to re-register before every election.  You will automatically receive a ballot in your mailbox if your registration remains current.  If your registration is unchanged from the last election you participated in, no further action is required.

Should your residence or mailing address change, you are responsible for updating your voter registration to ensure that you continue to receive a mailed ballot.

Fact: You are not required to be a party member to vote in the primary election.  Your primary election ballot will contain candidates from all political parties.

It is important to distinguish that presidential caucuses are however independently carried out by the political parties and may require party membership.  If you are interested in becoming a member of a political party, you must contact the political party directly.

 Fact: Voters receiving multiple mail ballot packets in the mail typically is the result of a request by the voter including a change in their voter registration, a report that they didn’t receive their ballot, or a request for a replacement ballot. 

Fact: Reports of voters fraudulently casting multiple ballots are without merit.  Suspected incidents of voter fraud are referred to law enforcement for thorough investigation, and there have been no findings of widespread voter fraud since implementing statewide elections by mail in 2020.

Election officials utilize a multi-pronged system of safeguards to combat fraudulent voting, including:

• To prevent voters from voting more than once: Every ballot return envelope is assigned a unique barcode.  When a voted ballot is received, officials scan the barcode and credit the voter for voting in the election. This prevents attempts to submit multiple ballots or to vote in person after mailing a ballot.

 Fact: Ballot dropboxes are purpose-built for elections and are equipped with security features to protect voted ballots in Hawai'i.

As an added layer of assurance, we encourage you to sign up for ballot tracking alerts at hawaii.ballottrax.net.  Ballot tracking enables you to receive confirmation that your ballot has been received by the County Elections Division and has been accepted for counting.

 Fact: Mail ballots are not forwardable, meaning the USPS is not permitted to deliver ballots to any address other than the one indicated on the mail ballot.  This allows election officials greater oversight to ensure the proper delivery of mail ballots.

If you move or change your mailing address, you must update your voter registration to receive your ballot to your new address.  Ballots that are not deliverable are returned to the County Elections Division and triggers voter list maintenance procedures.

 Fact: In Hawai'i, postmarks are not used to determine whether a voted ballot has met the deadline to be counted.  Election officials are only permitted to count ballots that are received by the deadline, 7:00 p.m. on Election Day. 

 Fact: All active registered voters are automatically sent a ballot package in the mail for every election.  Traditional polling places, which were assigned in the past, are no longer established since statewide elections by mail became effective in Hawai'i.  No traditional polling places are open for Election Day voting.

In contrast to traditional polling places, the County Elections Divisions establish in-person services at voter service center locations.  Rather than one day, these locations are open for up to 10 days prior to and on Election Day.

Voter service centers are intended to meet the needs of voters who are unable to vote on their mail ballot, such as a voter with a disability needing the use of accessibility aids which the voter service center provides.  Additionally, voter service centers serve as a last-minute resource for voters who have not registered or received their mail ballot or have damaged or lost their mail ballot.

 Fact: Election results are not final until results have been certified.  Reports will continue to be updated until all valid ballots received by the deadline are counted.  Changes to the results after the release of the first result report do not indicate fraud.

You can expect the following release of results:

• Report 1 is released after the last voter service center has closed on Election Day (this is after the last person in line at 7:00 p.m. has voted at all voter service centers statewide).
• Report 2 is scheduled for release at 10:30 p.m. on Election Day.
• Election Day Final Report is released once all return envelopes have been signature checked by the County Elections Division and processed at the counting center.
• Election Final Report is released after the 5-business day voter signature curing period.

 Fact: Election officials do not know the outcome of the election before Election Day.  Officials are only permitted to begin opening and scanning voted ballots 18 days before Election Day.  However, in accordance with Hawai'i State law, the vote counts are not tabulated until Election Day, and results are not released until voting has ended. 

 Fact: Ballots are not destroyed immediately after the election has concluded.  By federal law, the Office of Elections is required to retain paper ballots for 22 months. 

 Fact: To confirm the accuracy of the results, the Office of Elections conducts a post-election audit on 10% of district/precincts as mandated by Hawai'i State law.  The district/precincts are determined by random selection.

To conduct the audit, election officials compile a tally of expected results and compare that tally to the results tabulated from the voting equipment. This is done in the presence of official election observers.

 Fact: The Office of Elections conducts a post-election audit following Hawai'i State law.  To conduct the audit, officials create a tally of expected results by reviewing ballot images.

A ballot image is simply the scanned image of your voted mail ballot.  This scanned image is a true duplicate of your voted ballot, scanned using the federally certified voting system.

To further maintain transparency, the Official Observers tasked with monitoring the auditing process may review the physical voted ballots upon request.