SB19-Not Only Unnecessary, But Also Unenforceable
Democratic Senator Karl Rhoads, one of Universal Mail-In Voting’s biggest fans (along with Nago, Elections Commission Chair Scotty Anderson, and Representative Scott Saiki) has brought forth the following bill, which,
“Guarantees the vote of eligible voters who cast their ballot and then subsequently die or otherwise become ineligible before election day.”
It has passed first reading and will be presented January 27th at 10 am.
Why would we need more legislation allowing ineligible voters to vote?
We already have phantom voters, ballots automatically mailed to everyone on the voter rolls, questionable UOCAVA ballots, more ballots counted than envelopes received, unsupervised drop boxes in unlit parks accessible 24/7, Signature Verification Gone Wild, and an election season that goes on for weeks?
Don’t they have enough “excess” votes already?
One look at current Hawaii Law shows that guaranteeing ineligible votes are counted is already addressed:
HRS §15-13.5 Eligibility of voter after absentee ballot cast. The absentee ballot of any voter who was eligible to vote at the time the ballot was cast shall not be deemed invalid solely because the voter became ineligible to vote after casting the ballot. For the purposes of this section, "cast" means that the voter has:
(1) Deposited the absentee ballot in the mail for ballots mailed in accordance with section 15-9(a)(1);
(2) Delivered the absentee ballot to the appropriate county clerk or polling place in accordance with section 15-9; or
(3) Completed voting in person at an absentee polling place. [L 2019, c 10, §1; am L 2021, c 213, §38]
[§15D-10.5] Eligibility of covered voter after ballot cast. The military-overseas ballot of any covered voter who was eligible to vote at the time the ballot was cast in accordance with this chapter shall not be deemed invalid solely because the covered voter became ineligible to vote after casting the ballot. [L 2019, c 10, §2]
§15-3 Absentee ballot for presidential election. If ineligible to qualify as a voter in the state to which the voter has moved, any former registered voter of Hawaii may vote an absentee ballot in any presidential election occurring within twenty-four months after leaving Hawaii by requesting an application form and returning it properly executed to the county of the voter's prior Hawaii residence. When requesting an application form for an absentee ballot, the applicant shall specify the applicant's eligibility for only the presidential ballot, and the fact of applicant's ineligibility to vote at the applicant's new place of residence verified by the voter registrar or the registrar's authorized representative in the jurisdiction of the applicant's new residence. The application must be received in sufficient time for ballots to be mailed and returned prior to any presidential election at which the applicant wishes to vote. All required information pursuant to the rules promulgated by the chief election officer shall be completed in full. [L 1975, c 36, pt of §3; gen ch 1985]
How do you become an ineligible voter?
· You die
· You are convicted of a felony
· You vote in another state (you can move out of state and still vote in Hawaii elections)
· You relinquish US Citizenship
Here is the statute on what it takes to lose Hawaii residency when it comes to voting:
HRS §11-13 Rules for determining residency.
(7) A person loses the person's residence in this State if the person votes in an election held in another state by absentee ballot or in person.
Mail ballots are separated from their envelopes and thus cannot be traced back to any voter, ineligible or not.
So how many potential ineligible voters are we talking about?
Based on election season calendars, in an election year we are looking at roughly 6 weeks total of voting for the Primary and General combined.
How many people become ineligible to vote in 6 weeks?
We can calculate the monthly average of deaths, incarcerations for felonies, and moves out of state based on publicly available data.
Total deaths for 2021:
https://health.hawaii.gov/vitalstatistics/preliminary-vital-statistics-for-2021/
That’s an average of 1075 deaths per month, multiply by 1.5 for 1.5 months of voting we get an average of 1612 deaths for 6 weeks of election season. Not all are voting age, not all are registered to vote, but that’s a LOT of people to track…and if they’ve already voted and their mail ballots were removed from their envelopes, how would the county clerks go back to guarantee the dead persons vote was counted?
Are you seeing the ridiculosity of this?
Now let’s do felons.
I sent a public records request last year for the list of felons statewide. For the month of August there were 1235 adult felons incarcerated in state. Multiplying by 1.5 for our election season gives us an average of 1853 felons for a 6 week period.
To determine which felons were newly incarcerated and may have cast a ballot before going to jail is going to take some legwork on the part of the county clerks. Are they going to communicate daily with the prisons to check the mail-in ballots before they are separated from their envelopes and set aside the new felons’ ballots to make sure they are counted?
Are you seeing how there is no way this could ever be enforced?
Now let’s do moves out of state.
Our liberal voting laws already guarantee that you can move out of state permanently from Hawaii and still vote. You can vote in your new home state and Hawaii (albeit not legally, but it still happens). No one checks this, except for citizen Election Integrity volunteers. Even in the ERIC member states this is an issue.
On average, how many Hawaii residents move out of state in a 6 week period?
In a UHERO study 67,293 Hawaii residents moved out of state in 2018.
Census data for 2019 shows Hawaii’s outmigration to other states as 68,417 for 2019.
Using the 2019 census data and our 6 week voting season model, that’s an average of 7894 Hawaii residents moving out in a 6 week period.
78.1% of Hawaii residents are of voting age, which means on average 6165 voting age Hawaii residents moved out of state in a 6 week period in 2019.
To effectively enforce SB19 county clerks would need to monitor the registered voters of the pool of those 6165 and somehow guarantee that after their ballots are separated from the envelopes that their votes are still counted.
Again, how would they do this?
You can track Hawaii election legislation at Legiscan or through the Capitol website.
Sign up here for a free account and submit written testimony in opposition of SB19. Also sign up to submit oral testimony on January 27th at 10 am if you’re available.
We need in-person, on Election Day voting, with voter ID, period.
Until then, we need to fight the insanity of bills like SB19 and chip away at legislation already in place.
MAKE ELECTIONS PONO AGAIN
Corinne for Audit the Vote Hawaii