Early Walk-In Voting started today across the state. HPR’s Wayne Yoshioka visited the Honolulu Polling Site at City Hall.
Twenty people were waiting in line at Honolulu Hale when the polling station opened at 8am. Nicole Cabral from Waimanalo was among that first group. She voted for the Republican candidate for Governor.
“Andria Tupola. Because of change and she’s about the family. And she’ll make Hawai’i a better place.”
“I’m Richard Elstner. I live in Chinatown. Usually, I vote Independent, I like to support 3rd parties. But, this election is no time to be an idealist. We have to get the Republicans out of politics.”
“My name is Ramona Hussey, Manoa. I voted for the Green candidates, Jim Brewer and Renee Ing, because I’m with the Green Party. I think everybody’s big
issues are homelessness and housing. Housing is critical for so many of us, even people who have worked professionally, it’s difficult to afford housing now. I know personally.”
Daniel Heau from Pearl City voted to re-elect Democratic Governor David Ige, not only because his younger sister was Ige’s Pearl City High School classmate.
“I’ve crossed party lines before but in this particular year, all for obvious reasons, voting Democratic is very important.”
“Hi. I’m Pi’ilani Schneider, Hawai’i Kai (so, who did you vote for governor?) Tupola. I just feel like there’s just a one party state that needs to change and I don’t feel like all voices are being heard and it’s so one-sided. So, I want to see some changes.”
Meanwhile, Honolulu City Clerk Glenn Takahashi says voters are using walk-in voting sites throughout the island but not as much as in previous elections.
“It looks a little bit slow. Probably not going to equal the general election two years ago where we did up to 24-thousand throughout the course of the 10 days, but we’re hopeful. What we’re seeing now is a shifting towards the absentee mail balloting. We mailed out about 170-thousand ballot packets to absentee mail voters just within the last week. And through yesterday, we had about 23-thousand return envelopes recorded.”
And, Early Walk-in Voting ends statewide on November 3rd. Wayne Yoshioka, HPR News.
