It's Election Day — and officials are expecting long lines at polling centers as last-minute voters rush to get their ballots in before 7 p.m.
“There's going to be lines. We expect it to see lines all over,” said Chief Elections Officer Scott Nago.
“It's not like necessarily one county would see longer lines. I mean, Honolulu would obviously see longer lines because the bulk of the population is on Oʻahu, but we don't expect it to be localized to any particular county.”
Over 375,000 people — about 44% — have voted as of Monday.
The state is on track to beat voter turnout in the 2022 general election, but will likely not hit the 69% high from 2020.
Nago pointed out that more people are voting in person now than in the primary election.
That could partially be attributed to emails that the Hawaii Republican Party sent out to members encouraging them to vote in person instead of by mail — although there has been no evidence of widespread voter fraud.
Honolulu Elections Administrator Rex Quidilla explained that although lines will be long, there are ways to speed up the process if you’re voting in person today.
“If you have a Hawaiʻi State driver's license or ID, you could help yourself a lot. If you go to olvr.hawaii.gov to register before coming to the service center,” he said. “Otherwise, we’re going to be putting you in another line that takes a little longer than normal.”
He also recommended that people research the constitutional amendments and county charter amendments on the ballot before they get to the voting booth.
You can read HPR’s voter guide for explanations to these questions.
Election officials also reminded voters that political attire or campaign materials are not allowed within 200 feet of the voter area.
"We'll ask for you to either remove the cap or turn your shirt inside out, and this is without regard to who the candidate is," Quidilla said. "We want to keep the polling place without any outside influence and let people vote without any additional campaigning occurring in the service center."
People have until 7 p.m. to be in line to cast their vote. Those who have not yet mailed back their ballot can put it in a dropbox, which also must be received by the 7 p.m. cutoff.
The first round of election results will not be released until after the last person votes. During the last presidential election in 2020– that was around 11 p.m.
