According to the reports from the Board of Elections- Maui County has the lowest voter turnout with 85,197 registered voters and only 52,039 actually voting a turnout of 61.1%.
The second lowest turnout comes from the City and County of Honolulu with 466,499 registered voters and only 308,443 actually voting for a turnout of 66.1%
The County of Hawaii (Big Island) has the second highest turnout with 99,337 registered voters and 67,258 actually voting for a turnout of 67.7%
County of Kaua’i has the highest turnout with 40,323 registered voters, 27,497 actually voting for a turnout of 68.2%
The stakes are indeed higher for the Governor and Lt. Governor’s races, as well as Federal Office races. Contenders from islands other than O’ahu may have to work harder in not only campaigning on O’ahu, but on the additional neighbor islands as well.
Of course, the Special Election and Congressional District 1 races will not be affected, as they are solely to represent the Honolulu area. But what is interesting is that only one contender for that seat actually resides in the district to be represented in Congress.
However, despite all the trends and reports, Hawaii has the lowest in voter turnout in 2008 according to the Pacific Business News:
Hawaii’s voter turnout of 51.8 percent was the lowest of all states in 2008.
Only 53.5 of Hawaii’s total population was registered to vote last year — also last in the nation — despite having Hawaii-born-and-raised Barack Obama leading the Democratic Party ticket.
Which means that only about half of Hawaii’s total population is registered to vote, and about half of that population plus an additional 11-18% depending on county did vote. A little over a 1/4 of the State’s population voted in the elections last year.
