An account of ballot shortages at Hokulani Elementary
"There were problems with command center all day," Mike Kratzke, a state voter assistance officer told The Independent.
At 10:30 am, he said, officials from his precinct 20-04 (Hokulani Elementary, near the University) were on hold with command center staff for one hour.
And this morning, the state didn’t drop off as many boxes as they usually do, he said.
Instead of three boxes, they received two.
By 2:00 PM today, he noticed that they were running low on ballots. A lot of voters left, he said – “as many as 100.”
Because of the ballot shortage, Kratzke said that voters were forced to use an electronic machine, which several refused to do.
At 5:30, elections officials delivered more ballots to his precinct. Ballots which were rejected by the machine.
Why?
“They were for 19-04—Waialae Elementary,” Kratzke said.
The voting machine wasn’t the only source of malcontent. Voters were also concerned that the people they wanted to vote for – Keiko Bonk, running against incumbent Calvin Say for the State House, and Ann Kobayashi, running for city council – weren’t on the ballot.
Kratzke’s solution was smart, though: he had several people use Japanese language ballots to ensure that their votes were recorded.