Earlier this summer, a permitted interaction group, or PIG, within the state Elections Commission put out a report accusing the Office of Elections of overcounting 600-plus ballots received in Kauaʻi County during the 2024 election.
The commission then voted to hire an independent accounting firm to audit the Kauaʻi results, which will likely cost over $100,000.
However, the Office of Elections said the PIG report is incorrect and has issued its own over 1,000-page report in response.
The Office of Elections says the difference is six envelopes
The PIG report relies on an unofficial manual count of daily dropbox pickups of mail-in ballots by Kauaʻi County. The manual count is meant to be a way to estimate staffing needs throughout the election period. The PIG used those unofficial counts to identify the claimed discrepancy.
Chief Elections Officer Scott Nago emphasized that the manual count was never meant to be used as a check on the elections process.
“You’ve got to understand, manual counts are not perfect, because they're done manually – just like hand counting – you have the introduction of error,” he said.
He added that because many of the records were handwritten, errors had to be corrected as the unofficial manual counts were further scrutinized by the commission.
For example, on one of the handwritten entries, the number 91 was crossed out — but part of the 1 was still there. So when it was corrected to 88, it instead read as 188.
In another instance, one daily log of the unofficial counts of mail received by the U.S. Postal Service was missing an entry. Then, an election worker wrote in 3,004 hand-counted envelopes. However, after the Office of Elections and Kauaʻi County counted the receipts from USPS, that number was closer to 3,421.
Nago explained that after adding up the receipts from the USPS and correcting handwritten errors, the actual difference was six.
“The numbers we released in our Aug. 22 report is actually the latest numbers, and it's the more time you get, the more time we can look for discrepancies and error,” he said.
“That's why those numbers are a little different from the initial report that we submitted a month earlier, because the more time you have, the more you can look at things and figure it out.”
How does the Office of Elections check its counts?
Election officials collect envelopes each day from drop boxes and the post office and bring them to the county building. Ballots are then put through a high-speed scanner/sorter, which inputs that information into the statewide voter registration system. The number of envelopes collected is counted cumulatively each day in each county in the statewide voter registration system.
The Office of Elections uses what’s called an over/underage report to actually check if it’s counting the correct number of ballots. It compares the number of valid envelopes collected to the number of ballots counted.
That process showed that there were 25 more mail-in ballots counted than there were envelopes — an error of less than 0.1%.
The state Supreme Court can intervene if an election's results are in question and the vote difference is significant.
Election Commissioner Ralph Cushnie and over 30 plaintiffs challenged the 2024 Kauaʻi election. The court ruled against them, as the closest race had a roughly 100-vote margin. Cushnie also challenged the 2022 election over a similar issue and lost.
Nago explained that these types of accusations from the commission take away focus from what they need to plan for: the 2026 election.
“Instead of focusing on the election, you're focusing on dispelling a rumor or some conspiracy theory,” Nago said. “So rather than focusing on the 2026 election, we're still focusing on the 2024 election and all the different things, trying to show how it's a legitimate election.”
Political analyst Neal Milner said this trend is similar to what’s playing out across the country due to President Donald Trump’s often baseless criticisms of mail-in voting.
“If it happens here, it's just part of what's happening everywhere else. Donald Trump continues to talk about how fraught, fragile and fraudulent the American electoral process is. This whole nonsense about mail-in ballots, for example, he'll get a lot of people believing in that sort of stuff,” Milner said.
“That's the atmosphere in which the opposition is to the way the Office of Elections has been run.”
Lizzie Ulmer, a senior vice president at States United Action, a nonpartisan nonprofit dedicated to protecting elections, explained that dispelling misinformation and responding to allegations can burden local election officials.
“It's incredibly important for them to stay consistent and strong in defending the free, fair, and secure elections that they run, emphasizing that system of checks and balances in place and all of the ways in which they are working with other local officials and statewide officials to make sure that things are secure and accurate for voters where they live,” she said.
The Elections Commission’s decision to audit the 2024 Kauaʻi election
The two political parties represented in the state Legislature essentially get to appoint four commissioners each. The eight commissioners then pick a ninth member to be their chairperson. Before this system was in place, the governor appointed the commissioners.
The state Elections Commission is currently majority Republican appointees, as two of the four Democrat appointees have stepped down.
Both Democrat appointees voted against the audit of the 2024 Kauaʻi election results. Commissioner Jeffrey Osterkamp raised concerns about the audit during the meeting.
“It's based on a report that has been rebutted by the Office of Elections, yet that rebuttal seems to have been almost completely disregarded here today by the members of the PIG,” Osterkamp said. “I think that we're just going to be digging the hole deeper, creating a lot of problems for ourselves.”
Democrat-appointed Commissioner Clare McAdam acknowledged that the system isn’t perfect, but wanted to see the funds spent on other improvements to the election process.
“I think it would be better spending of taxpayers' money to look at how we can improve our rules, how we can look at what we have right now within the statutes, and perhaps put something in there that's clearer, more concise and easier for counties in the office selections to follow so it's standardized across the state,” McAdam said.
“I don't think spending hundreds, thousands of dollars on an audit for Kauaʻi right now is a really good use of the money.”
However, permitted interaction group member and Republican-appointed Commissioner Lindsay Kamm wanted to utilize the commission’s power to audit the Kauaʻi election results.
“I would be delighted to find out that everything added up, and their only problem is that they’re terrible record keepers, and then we could make new rules that say you have to fill out these paper forms, and the paper trail has to match the electronic record, and that would be great,” Kamm said. “But there's so many inconsistencies and deficiencies and discrepancies that it really needs to be addressed.”
It’s unclear who would pay for the audit or if it would need legislative approval. The commission is expected to take up another PIG report regarding similar allegations in its meeting next month.
Hawaiʻi Public Radio exists to serve all of Hawai’i, and it’s the people of Hawai’i who keep us independent and strong. Help keep us strong to serve you in the future. Donate today.
