Kauai County gets bragging rights with the highest voter turn-out of all counties with 51% of registered voters, actually casting their vote. Hawaii County was second with 49.3%, Honolulu third with 48.9%, and Maui was last at 45.7%.

Actually, Kauai County has had those same bragging rights for the past 3 election cycles and had the highest voter turnout of all Counties also in 2020 at 72.1% (versus 66.4% for Maui) and in 2018 with 58.1% (Maui was 52.4%).

Drilling down deeper we find that District #16 (Wailua to Puhi) had a 52% turnout, #17 (Koloa to Kekaha) was 51.7%, and #15 (Kapaa to Haena) was at the bottom with 47.4%.

What else do the numbers say? For those with time on their hands, go to the Office of Elections “Results” page https://elections.hawaii.gov/election-results/ – select 2022 “Statewide Precinct Detail” and scroll down.

Kauai voters showed the least amount of enthusiasm for the Green/Luke gubernatorial ticket of any County with 57.5% voting in support. Hawaii County with 65.1% showed the strongest support, followed by Maui with 64.7%, and Honolulu at 61.5%.

Another interesting tidbit: 3.4% of Kauai voters left the gubernatorial selection blank. All other counties had 1.5% or fewer blank votes for this choice.

Kauai has a history of being the renegade, the separate kingdom, and the island that was never conquered. Where else does Kauai County stand out when the election numbers are tallied?

3% of Kauai residents chose to vote on November 8th, the final day of the election. Hawaii County was next at 2.4%, Maui had 2% and Honolulu was at 1.7%.

If the election for Governor and Lieutenant Governor were decided by Kauai residents that voted “in-person” then Duke Aiona and Seaula “Junior” Tupa’i would soon be moving into the 5th-floor suite at the Capitol. They won the in-person vote in every single precinct.

The voters of Niihau also voted overwhelmingly for the Aiona/Tupa’i Republican ticket with 80% of their 61 votes (mail and in-person) going for that duo.

If the in-person voters were selecting our U.S. Senator, it’s also likely that Republican Bob McDermott would have defeated incumbent Democrat Brian Schatz.

Conventional wisdom would say that many but certainly not all of the in-person voters are those that do not trust the “all mail voting system”. These would tend to fall into the categories of “election deniers”, Q’anon, MAGA Republicans, independents, and other procrastinator types who may or may not have drunk the Kool-Aid.

When analyzing the data it is interesting that each of the 3 Republican candidates running for State Representative: Greg Bentley, Steve Yoder, and Michael Wilson each received about 23% of the votes. This would lead one to believe that the Republican-leaning base equals about this same number. However, the Gubernatorial Aiona/Tupa’i Republican ticket garnered 39% of the vote. Translation: About 16% of the voters chose Aiona/Tupa’i but did not choose the other Republicans.

What does this all mean? Frankly, it’s troubling to think that nearly 40% of voters are willing to support two individuals positioned so far to the right. Both Aiona/Tupa’i oppose marriage equality and a woman’s right to choose. They would prefer the church control the decision on marriage and the government control a woman’s choice over her own reproductive health.

The next thing you know, they will be telling us what books we may or may not read. Oh, I forgot, they are already doing this.

And yes, the Green/Luke ticket was imperfect as well and I’ve not shied away from saying so.

If there is a silver lining, it’s that the vote was 57.5% to 39% and not the 49.7% to 49.5% we are seeing in other places.

Fortunately, we live in a place where though we may have our differences, we can discuss them without vitriol – occasional snarkiness and sarcasm perhaps but without the vitriol. For at the end of the day we are neighbors who count on each other.