Just over a week remains until the filing deadline to be a candidate for office in the 2010 elections.
It's not unusual in Hawaii to have dozens of unopposed seats on the ballot. That's all changing this year.
This crowd of Republicans filing papers to run for office represents a big change from what the GOP itself called a tough year in 2008 with a hometown Democrat on the ticket for president.
"It's a better year for Republicans this year, people are more excited and we're taking advantage of that," said Dylan Nonaka with the Hawaii Republican Party.
Two years ago, about one-third of all state-seat races were uncontested for the primary and general elections. This year, a new trend appears to be emerging.
Out of 69 party races on the ballot so far, hundreds of candidates have pulled papers to consider filing. Most are Democrats, 20 chose no party affiliation and three are listed as Libertarians. And dozens more Republicans may file this year than in the recent past.
"The more competition there is, the better the community would be served, could be served in the hawaii state legislature," said Dante Carpenter with the Democratic Party of Hawaii.
Nearly 140 interested candidates have been issued running papers for 32 nonpartisan races - seats like School Board, OHA, County Council and mayor.
But so far no one has expressed interest in taking on the incumbent in 12 unopposed Democratic seats and three unopposed Republican seats.
There are a handful of races where Democrats are taking on other Democratic incumbents.
"My feeling is the community is not served if there is no competitive activities by individuals who are vying for a similar leadership role," said Carpenter.
Whereas Republicans ran in fewer than 40 races in 2008, they say they have someone for all but a handful of the 69 on the ballot this year.
"There were 29 open seats that didn't have a candidate in 2008, we're down to eight right now," said Nonaka. "Every incumbent deserves to be challenged on their record and we wanna do that."
It remains to be seen how campaign strategy will go in each local race, but the civil union issue is likely to garner some focus. The Republicans say many of their candidates see it this way:
"They believe that their communities do not support civil unions and they're gonna make that an issue," said Nonaka.
The Democratic Party sees it differently.
"I think most of the electorate will not vote on single issues," said Carpenter.
If you'd like to run for office, the filing deadline is 4:30 p.m. on July 20.
A handful more seats are expected to open up, including Honolulu mayor. Once that happens, candidates will have another 10 days from the opening to file for candidacy.
Unopposed Democrats -- None have pulled papers to run against:
Sen. Shan Tsutsui
Sen. Brian Taniguchi
Sen. Donna Kim
Rep. Jerry Chang
Rep. Clifton Tsuji
Rep. Mele Carroll
Rep. Hermina Morita
Rep. Scott Nishimoto
Rep. Joey Manahan
Rep. Mark Takai
Rep. Marcus Oshiro
Rep. Christopher Lee
Unopposed Republican -- None have pulled papers to run against:
Rep. Gene Ward
Rep. Barbara Marumoto
Rep. Cynthia Thielen
Other Unopposed -- None have pulled papers to run against:
Kauai Mayor Bernard Carvalho
Hawaii County Council, Dominic Yagong
Hawaii County Council, Stanley Yoshimoto
Maui County Council Joseph Pontanilla (kahului)
Maui County Council, Dennis Mateo (molokai)
School Board Eileen Clarke
Oha trustee Boyd Mossman, Maui
