Former Maui County Council Chair Kelly King, along with 30 other voters, are contesting the general election where she lost to Tom Cook by 94 votes.
The basis of the complaint revolved around the signature verification of mail-in ballots.
Over 1,000 envelopes were deemed deficient because the signatures did not match what was on file by the Maui County Clerk. Because of that, those voters were alerted and had until Nov. 13 to cure their ballots.
The Maui County Clerk said a third of those who were notified responded and their votes were counted.
However, King's complaint alleges that because Maui's rejection rate was nearly double the state average and four times the national average, it is unlikely voter signature discrepancies were the problem.
Instead, the complaint accuses Maui County of not counting the ballots properly. King wants to see the Hawaiʻi Supreme Court invalidate the results and order a new election for the South Maui Council seat.
“Despite the Supreme Court's admonition to the Maui County Clerk two years ago regarding election shortcomings, it is deeply troubling to see Maui County with an even larger numbers of voters being deprived of their constitutional right to vote in this election," said King's attorney, Lance D. Collins.
In a statement, the Maui County Clerk Office explained that the invalid signatures are checked by both the election equipment and then by trained staff manually.
The office added that they use email, mail, and phone to contact voters if their ballots needed to be cured.
Another election case was also filed by Ralph Cushnie and 30 other voters regarding an unofficial manual count of daily dropbox pickups of mail-in ballots Kauaʻi County.
These cases will not impact the certification of the election results, which Chief Election Officer Scott Nago did on Nov. 25.
However, Nago will be unable to give the individual certificate of election in the impacted races that is provided to each winning candidate that shows they have been elected to their specific office until the court cases are resolved.
