Will efforts to reach displaced Lahaina voters pay off? Today’s primary election may tell

When he looks at the long road to recovery ahead of Lahaina, Archie Kalepa thinks it’s more important than ever to have the right leaders making decisions about his hometown’s future. 

“Everybody’s staying very, very focused about the issues happening around Lahaina,” said Kalepa, a veteran waterman with deep roots in West Maui. “Everything’s somehow in some shape or form connected to politics. It’s more important than ever for us to be vigilant, to be voting, to make sure we continue to get the support that Lahaina needs.”

But with the primary election falling just days after the one-year anniversary of the August 2023 wildfires, will voting even be on people’s minds? And will turnout take a dip with thousands of West Maui residents displaced from their burned-down homes? Kalepa, for one, has faith people will still cast their ballots. 

“This one-year anniversary is a chance for us to reflect, but we also have to continue to live our lives with the hope that we have good government leaders representing us,” said Kalepa, a member of the mayor’s Lahaina Advisory Team. “I’m sure that everybody is well aware of how important it is for them to vote and make sure their voices are heard.”

Getting ballots to Lahaina residents who have been displaced from their homes has been a daunting task. Last year, Maui County partnered with the state Office of Elections on a campaign to send letters to all voters who lived in the burn zone, urging them to contact the county to update their information to receive ballots, Maui County Clerk Moana Lutey said last month. While ballots can’t be forwarded, those letters could be. After the fire, the U.S. Postal Service delivered Lahaina residents’ mail to the Wailuku Post Office and offered free P.O. boxes to displaced residents.

Lutey said they also ran ads in October and November urging voters to contact the county and sent staff out to the weekly Lahaina community updates and hotels where displaced residents were staying. They also called every person on a list of more than 6,000 registered voters in Lahaina; about 2,000 people responded. 

“We’re trying to get ahead of all of this so that, you know, instead of waiting until elections are closer upon us and now we’re hunting people down, we’re just trying to be as proactive as possible,” Lutey said. 

But at the time of the campaign, she said, many people were still living in hotels or with family members. Some of them weren’t sure where they would be by the time of the election. Since the fires, residents have shuffled between hotels and homes offered by the federal government and local nonprofits, and new temporary housing developments continue to usher in families. 

Lutey said she’s “not sure” how the mass displacement will affect turnout. Voting in person is still an option in the era of mail-in ballots, and with a voter service center located at the Lahaina Civic Center from Aug. 7-10 around the same time as multiple anniversary events in the area, she said that people might come in and vote in person. 

“I know that for at least my family and friends and high school classmates that have lost everything in this fire, that for them, they’re just really trying to look forward, and just continue moving in that direction,” said Lutey, a third-generation Lahainaluna High School graduate. “And so I’m hoping that that’s the sentiment of, you know, a lot of the people who were impacted by the fires, that by moving forward and having their voice heard with this election that they do come out, that they do vote, whether it’s in person or by mail, whichever.” 

When asked if he thought officials were doing enough to reach displaced Lahaina voters, Kalepa said he felt both the county and residents “have done everything they could to make sure mail’s getting to the right place.” 

“There’s a lot of issues still pressing Lahaina, and I’m sure that there’s a few people that are having problems with their mail, but everybody’s working real hard — county, state, federal government, everybody’s working hard to get to where we’re at,” he said.

FIRE’S RECOVERY COULD WEIGH ON FUTURE ELECTIONS

Just under 95,000 ballots have been mailed out across Maui County, according to Lutey. During the last primary election, the county’s turnout was the lowest in the state. With the mass displacement, Hawai‘i political analyst Colin Moore said, it’s likely to be worse this year. 

“People have other things they’re concerned about. Voting is probably not at the top of the list,” said Moore, an associate professor with the University of Hawai‘i Economic Research Organization and the Matsunaga Institute for Peace. “And I think getting those ballots, you know, actually receiving them, I’m sure the election office is trying their best, but there’s going to be a lot of confusion about that. … People have left, or they’ve left temporarily, so I think we’re going to see a big hit for turnout on Maui, particularly turnout in the affected areas, which already had low voter turnout.” 

Primary elections in blue state Hawai‘i can, at times, be more competitive than the general election because many races with Democratic-only fields can be decided in August. However, Moore said this election cycle has been quieter across the state, with “almost no exciting top-level races” with big spending and heavy competition that could drive turnout. 

This year’s election has neither a mayoral race in Maui County nor a gubernatorial race for the state, which are typically big draws on the local ticket. Seven of the nine Maui County Council races are contested, but only two will appear on the primary ballot. Just three of Maui County’s nine state legislative districts include a primary contest.

Moore thinks the 2026 cycle, when Maui County Mayor Richard Bissen is up for reelection, could be the most telling in terms of how Maui voters feel after the fire.

“My general sense is we’re really going to see the impacts next cycle, when Bissen is up,” he said. “The recovery will be where it is at this point, and I think that’s going to be the hardest period of the recovery, after the initial funds and the initial support kind of begins to dissipate and now people are sort of understanding this is for better or worse, this is the new reality, and there’s going to be a lot of lingering problems. I think that’s where it’ll be clearer how it’s affecting politics over the long term.”

Voter turnout tends to jump during presidential election years, as it did in Maui County in the 2020 general election. And a heated race that’s seen President Joe Biden drop out and endorse Vice President Kamala Harris — “a wild ride” to watch even for longtime observers like Moore — could infuse new life into the voting public’s interest. 

“Biden dropping out has injected a lot of excitement into the campaign, and I think particularly it will excite young voters and other voters who just felt disengaged from the Biden-Trump race,” Moore said. “Do I think that there’s going to be a dramatic increase in turnout here? No, I’m almost certain it will be lower than it was in 2020, but I do think that Harris entering the race will likely excite more voters who weren’t planning to vote.”

Ballots are due today by 7 p.m.; full information on Maui County drop box and walk-in voting center locations is available at mauicountyvotes.gov. A full list of state and Maui County races is also available here.