Third printout
By B.J. Reyes
The “Obama Effect” — a high turnout from Democratic voters casting their ballot for Hawaii-born presidential candidate Barack Obama — appears to have worked in favor of local Democrats.
That’s how it looks with the third printout from the state Office of Elections. (Almost 300,000 voters turned out to cast their ballots for Obama)
The state Senate is down to just two Republicans, after former Democratic Party Chairman Brickwood Galuteria defeated incumbent Sen. Gordon Trimble for the Waikiki-Ala Moana Senate District. Galuteria won 5,506 votes to 4,977, with all precincts counted. With Big Island Sen. Paul Whalen’s decision to not seek re-election, that leaves the state GOP with just Sens. Fred Hemmings and Sam Slom in the senior chamber.
In the state House, longtime Rep. Colleen Meyer has lost to newcomer Jessica Wooley, 4,532 votes to 4,098.
Perhaps the biggest upset was in the 51st House House District (Lanikai-Waimanalo), where upstart Chris Lee topped well-funded former House Minority Leader Quentin Kawananakoa, 5,410 votes to 3,105. Many had seen that race as the ultimate test of grassroots organizing versus political money. Lee made a name for himself working tirelessly sign-waving and canvassing the neighborhood.
There were no other surprises in the Legislature. All other incumbents held on to their seats and Democrats picked up all of the remaining vacant seats. That gives Democrats three additional seats and an even heftier majority in both chambers: 23-2 in the Senate and 45-6 in the House.
The Honolulu mayor’s race remained unchanged from the second printout as Mufi Hannemann maintained his margin and defeated Ann Kobayashi, 155,221 votes to 112,001.
The Honolulu City Charter amendment for a steel-on-steel rail transit system supported by Hannemann also won out, 140,152 votes to 125,360.
Meanwhile, the statewide initiative to hold a 2010 Constitutional Convention failed, 258,304 votes to 140,728, with 18,953 blank votes (which are counted as “no” votes). A group called the Hawaii Alliance, funded heavily by the mainland-based National Education Association,spent more than $500,000 to lobby against the Con Con.
This from reporter Craig Gima covering the state Election Center at the Capitol:
Even though the third printout shows all or nearly all precincts reporting, there are still some votes cast today still to be counted and “several thousand” absentee mail-in ballots being processed, officials said.
The mail-in ballots were received today and have to verified and counted. That’s generally the reason why the final printout with 100 percent of the vote isn’t released until early in the morning.
Elections officials also were trying to track down three memory cards from voting today. Two eScan cards from precincts 49-02 and 50-03 have yet to be counted. A third eSlate card from precinct 19-03 is also yet to be counted. None of the precincts involve a close race. Two precincts have no general election race and in the third, 19-03, state Rep. Barbara Marumoto has a comfortable lead.
November 5th, 2008 at 1:32 am
Shows how out of touch Lingle is with Hawaii. She was off trying to get in McCain’s cabinet lying that Obama was not a son of Hawaii, and ignoring her job. She can not even hold local seats. She admits to voting against the will of the will of the people on transit. Time for her to pack up and go. Possibly Alaska will need a new governor soon.