Election Day

Here the local candidates stand on the sides of the roads and wave to people as you drive by.  Above is Kymberly Pine (far left) who is running against Tom Berg for the Honolulu City Council.  They have been out on the roadsides for the last month.  Below is Sharon Har (far right) running for a State Representative seat.  In case anyone is interested the full list is here (link). 

I've been waving to the candidates as I go by but I can't vote in most of their districts.  I don't remember this kind of in-person roadside advertising anywhere else I've lived.  We've also received a lot of advertising in the mail but this is the first place where I've seen family history (when the great grandparents first moved to Hawai'i and where) for both the candidate and their spouse(!) listed foremost.  (Hawaiians are obsessed with who has been in the islands for longest to rank people.)  Other points that are also popular are military support and jobs for local people.  Also a couple candidates have made stopping the rail project their central issues.

I took the older kids and went to vote earlier today (after most people have already voted on the mainland because of the time difference).  Sure enough, I was registered and it went off without a hitch.  I took my cheat sheet of candidates names that I had settled on after looking up what their positions were and the ballot initiatives and filled out the ballot from that.  I was even asked to fill out a survey in an exit poll but they didn't have a check box to blame Bush for the economy. 

Afterward I took the kids by the grocery store.  Election day in Hawai'i is a state holiday and there is no public school.  There were adults and children lined up with placards at the intersection where the candidates had been with "honk to support education" on the signs.  I had not heard anyone honk--and it was a busy intersection.  I beeped three times going through and they put up a cheer!  It helped underscore how education had fell by the wayside in the candidates debates; where is the education candidate?