When Congressman Neil Abercrombie leaves his post Sunday to run for Hawaii governor, the seat will be vacant until a special election is held. A date has not yet been proclaimed but now a tentative scheduling from the office of elections.
In a voting equipment bid notice, the office says a proclamation next month is expected to designate Saturday, May 22nd.
“There's at least a target, so that all of us that are running kind of know how to gear up to it,” said congressional candidate, Colleen Hanabusa.
"I'm glad that we finally have a date here and no we can zero in on when this election is going to occur,” said congressional candidate, Charles Djou.
"We need to fill this right away. We cannot afford to be unrepresented in congress,” said congressional candidate, Ed Case.
While May 22nd seems to be the goal, the office of elections says in the bid specs that "a variety of issues related to funding, logistical and legal matters may impact that date."
They do make clear it will be Hawaii’s first vote by mail for a congressional seat.
"I think it's the easiest way to go about this. It's obviously the cheapest and we need to run an election as inexpensively as possible,” said Case.
"We had two special elections for the Honolulu city council, both of which were conducted without incident in under 60 days we ought to be able to do this for a congressional election,” said Djou.
An estimated 350,000 ballots will be mailed out.
Though the mailing date isn't exactly clear, it should be around the end of April.
"The thing that's outstanding is the machines and how we're gonna count the ballots, and that's not a minor technicality, that's a major component of it,” said Hanabusa.
That’s because of an injunction after challenges from Maui over electronic ballot counting rules.
This won't be the end of the congressional voting this year, though.
The special election only fills the seat from this spring through next January.
The race will be on again in the fall.
