Over the summer, for the 2020 primary, Hawaii held its first election that allowed mail-in voting, making it the fourth state to allow this type of voting. 

Hawaii has long had a reputation for low voter turnout. Common Cause Hawaii, a nonpartisan grassroots organization, advocates for mail-in ballots, saying it decreases barriers to voting — lines and specific times to cast a ballot — which will increase voter turnout. 

It's not clear whether mail-in voting has increased turnout in Hawaii. The 2022 general election saw a very low turnout at only 41%, according to the second printout for election results. A final printout might show a slight increase in voter turnout.

However, the voter turnout numbers from the 2020 primary, the 2020 general election and the 2022 primary election showed that mail-in voting had increased voter turnout, but there are a lot of subtleties. Future elections will need to take place to provide more data. 

Colin Moore, the director of the Public Policy Center at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, told Spectrum News Hawaii that the state’s reputation for low voter turnout is overblown. 

When considering Hawaii’s voter turnout, he said it’s important to keep in mind that the state sees a higher voter turnout in the primary than in states like California or Minnesota that have a strong general election voter turnout. 

In Hawaii, many races are decided during the primary since the state mostly votes for Democrats.

“That’s where a lot of the excitement is,” said Moore about Hawaii’s primary election. 

In the August primary, 340,159 (39.8%) of 853,874 registered voters submitted ballots. However, that’s not nearly as high as the 2020 primary, when 407,190 (51.2%) of 795,248 voters submitted ballots. It’s worth noting that 2020 was an election year when voters voted for the president, which always brings more people to the polls.

Most importantly, these numbers are higher than the primary election in 2018, before mail-in voting was an option. For the 2018 primary, 286,180 (38.6%) of 741,007 registered voters submitted ballots. 

The 2014 primary does show voter turnout at a slightly higher percentage (41.5%) than this August (39.8%), but the number of ballots received was 289,398 in 2014 compared with 340,159 in 2022, which is a significant increase (50,761 more ballots).  

Moore said that looking only at the percentage of voters, which compares registered voters to the number of ballots received each election, doesn’t show the full picture. This, he said, is because not everyone who is registered in Hawaii still lives here. He called these “zombie registrations.” 

“I think our elections office tends to keep a lot of people who no longer live here as registered voters. Even if you look at the number of ballots that were actually mailed out, that number in the primary was much lower than the number of registered voters because they can't verify addresses,” said Moore. “It takes them a while to purge the registered voter list.”

While the number of registered voters in Hawaii has increased in recent years, the state hasn’t seen a population increase — more people are moving out of the state than moving here — so that doesn’t account for the difference. The state has simply gotten better at registering voters. Moore urged comparing the total number of votes each election year, in which case there is a clear increase for voter turnout in Hawaii’s primary elections.

While the primary elections provided evidence for increased voter turnout, the 2022 general election had extremely low voter turnout with only 353,504 (41%) out of 861,358 registered voters filling out ballots, according to the second printout for election results. The final results will likely show at least a small increase in voter turnout. These numbers are less than before mail-in voting began, throwing a wrench into hopes that mail-in voting would increase turnout.

"It's almost certainly because of the lack of competitive races at the top of the ticket," said Moore about Tuesday's low voter turnout. "As a result, there was very little advertising and few mobilization efforts after the primary."

In the 2020 general election, 579,165 (69.6%) of 832,466 registered voters submitted ballots. In the 2018 general election, 398,657 (52.7%) of 756,751 registered voters submitted ballots. This shows a clear increase since mail-in voting began in 2020.  

In 2016’s general election, the numbers were slightly better than 2018, which makes sense because more people vote during a year when there’s a presidential election. In the 2016 general election, 437,664 (58.4%) of 749,917 registered voters submitted ballots. 

If we compare the two presidential election years — 2020 vs. 2016 — there is still an increase in voter turnout after mail-in voting started. 

To really know how mail-in voting has impacted voter turnout, Moore said the state would need to hold a few more elections for comparison. 

“We really only have this one data point from a pretty extraordinary presidential election and extraordinary time in 2020,” said Moore. 

Still, he said the research shows for most states, mail-in voting provides a small increase — about 2-4% — in voter turnout. A positive finding, Moore said, is that the increase is most notable among young people who are less likely to go to the polls. A positive finding, Moore said, is that the increase is most notable among young people who are less likely to go to the polls.

Michelle Broder Van Dyke covers the Hawaiian Islands for Spectrum News Hawaii.

EDITOR'S NOTE: This story has been updated to reflect the voting numbers after the the second printout of the general election and a response from Colin Moore. (Nov. 9, 2022)