Hawaiʻi Supreme Court finds in favor of Cook in challenge of his election to South Maui Council seat
The Hawaiʻi Supreme Court has unanimously ruled in favor of incumbent South Maui Council Member Tom Cook and against an election challenge by opponent and former Council Member Kelly King.
The ruling affirms Cook’s slim 97-vote victory and cements the status quo on the Maui County Council, giving the edge to the five-member, pro-business Council majority and a loss to the four-member minority.
The Christmas Eve ruling was the result of a legal challenge by King and 30 Maui County voters seeking to void the results of the South Maui County Council race and to hold a new election. The challenge alleged the County Clerk failed to comply with standards and erroneously deemed return envelopes deficient.
However, in a 24-page decision, the Hawaiʻi Supreme Court agreed with Maui County Clerk Moana Lutey, who maintained that her office committed no mistake or error in the processing and review of return identification envelopes submitted by voters.
The Clerk’s Office complied with applicable Hawaiʻi law, rejecting returned voter envelopes only when there were sufficient discrepancies to find that they could not be verified.
The court noted that every voter with a return identification envelope that had been found deficient was mailed a letter from the Clerk’s Office with notice and an opportunity to correct, or “cure,” the discrepancy.
“The preponderance of the evidence established that all of these notices were mailed by the Clerk to the same address where the original ballot was mailed within one business day of the Clerk’s receipt of the deficient return identification envelope,” the court said. “For any return identification envelopes that were received on the election date (Nov. 5, 2024) the notice of deficiency was mailed to the voter the next day on Nov. 6, 2024. This mailing occurred well before the Nov. 13, 2024 deadline for the voter to cure the deficiency identified on the return identification envelope.”
There was also a process for email and telephone notification, the court said.
The court concluded that the Maui clerk’s actions complied with Hawaiʻi law and that the clerk’s actions were reasonable.
The court said: “We conclude that all the 939 voters whose return identification envelopes were deemed deficient by the Clerk and subsequently failed to cure the deficiency by the statutory deadline, were provided with reasonable notice and the opportunity to correct the deficiency on the return identification envelope. The preponderance of the evidence established that all of these 939 voters were equally provided with the opportunity to participate in the election and none of them was disenfranchised as a result of the Clerk’s deficiency determination.”
The court found that Cook had 26,423 votes and King had 26,326, a difference of 97 votes in favor of Cook.
The court ordered the Maui County clerk to deliver the certificate of election to Cook and install him as the South Maui council member of the Maui County Council.
In a news release, Lutey said: “While we’re aware that election-related litigation is all too common in this day and age, going through a lawsuit immediately following the immense effort of conducting an election still takes a human toll on our hardworking staff, who work long hours during the election cycle and are diligent in providing voters with every opportunity to exercise their right to vote. We are grateful to the Court for quickly resolving this matter so that we can proceed with the start of the 2025 Council term unimpeded.”
The Friends of Tom Cook released a statement, saying: “We thank the County Clerk’s Office and its entire staff for their extraordinary efforts to safeguard the integrity of the election process here in Maui County. We have won this election, and thank all those who have made this campaign possible. Council Member Tom Cook looks forward to continuing his work in serving the people of Maui County.”
King did not respond to Maui Now’s emailed request for comment.
The inauguration of the 2025-2027 Maui County Council will be held at 10 a.m. Jan. 2 at the Maui Arts & Cultural Center’s Castle Theater. The event will be televised live on Akakū Channel 54 and the Council’s YouTube and Facebook channels.
Editor’s note: This story has been updated from an earlier post to include a comment from the Friends of Tom Cook.