Cured ballots close gap but confirm Cook’s lead over King in South Maui council race 

The counting of nearly 300 more ballots in the race for the South Maui seat on the Maui County Council narrowed the gap, but incumbent Tom Cook remained in the lead and appears to have locked up the victory over challenger Kelly Takaya King. 

Cook came away with 26,423 votes (41.6%), which is 97 more than King’s 26,326 votes (41.4%), according to results released Wednesday night by the state Office of Elections.

The gap had been 117 after the Nov. 5 general election, but more than 1,000 ballots contained signature problems that had to be cured. Both campaigns spent the past week urging supporters to ensure their votes had been counted by the ballot curing deadline of 4:30 p.m. Wednesday.

Of the 298 ballots that were added to the total on Wednesday, 128 went to King, 108 went to Cook and 62 were blank.

The state Office of Elections did not respond to multiple inquiries as to whether this finalized Cook’s victory, but with no recount triggered and the deadline for cured ballots passed, the only other option is a legal challenge.

According to the Maui County Clerk’s Office, the deadline to file an election objection is Nov. 25.

Deputy County Clerk Richelle Thomson said Thursday that the office is “not aware of any complaint or challenge filed to date.”

In the 2022 election, candidate Noelani Ahia and 30 Maui County voters lodged a challenge against the results of the Wailuku-Waihe‘e-Waikapū race. Incumbent Alice Lee led Ahia by more than 500 votes, but the plaintiffs claimed the county and state had failed to properly notify voters whose ballots had deficiencies.

Lee did not participate in the January 2023 swearing-in ceremony while a court ruling was pending. The Hawai‘i Supreme Court confirmed Lee’s win later that month.  

Cook said on Thursday that he felt like he’d gone through two elections. He said he hoped the results would stand and that the council could move forward with business. 

“I feel good,” he said. “One, relieved that basically the election process is over and we have a result, and two, excited and looking forward to the next term. There’s a lot of work to be done.”

King and Cook have faced off twice for the South Maui seat on the 9-member council. King won the last contest in 2020, and Cook secured the open seat in 2022 when King stepped down to run unsuccessfully for mayor. King served three terms on the council starting in 2016 when she unseated incumbent Don Couch. 

King did not respond to a request for comment from the Hawai‘i Journalism Initiative on Thursday.

Since Hawai‘i went to a vote-by-mail system in 2020, registered voters have received their ballots in the mail with the option of dropping them off at deposit boxes around their home county or completing them in person at voter service centers. Voters are required to sign their ballots. If a ballot does not contain a signature or does not match the signature that the county has on file, it’s considered “deficient,” and the voter has five business days after the election to “cure” the issue. 

Maui County had a total of 1,239 deficient ballots prior to and on Election Day, according to the County Clerk’s Office. All cured ballots are securely transported to the Counting Center, where elections personnel open the ballot envelopes, remove the secrecy sleeves, and prepare the ballots for scanning and counting, all in the presence of official observers, the Clerk’s Office said in a news release Wednesday.

“We are gratified by Maui County voters’ attention to this ‘cure’ process,” County Clerk Moana Lutey said in the news release. “Many voters cured their ballot envelope issues prior to election day, and so their ballots were already counted. These additional cured ballot envelopes are the result of the diligent outreach efforts by dedicated County staff who immediately mailed voters, and followed up with emails and phone calls for voters who provided this information in their voter records.”

The hotly contested South Maui race could have shifted the balance of power on the council between one faction primarily known as pro-development and another known as pro-environment. Cook is among the five council members seen as pro-development who hold a majority on the council. With Cook’s win, all nine incumbents secured reelection to the council. 

King raised concerns last week over the “big money influence and how much luxury and high end development will be approved if the current council majority stands.”

Cook’s campaign was the most well-funded of the current election cycle, bringing in more than $170,000 in donations, the most of any council candidate, according to campaign spending reports as of Oct. 21, the final disclosures released before the Nov. 5 election. King received more than $46,000, according to reports as of Nov. 5. (Cook has not yet filed his Oct. 22-Nov. 5 report, which is due Dec. 5.)

Ad spending also highlighted how crucial many saw the South Maui race to be — from Sept. 27 to Oct. 21, the super PAC For a Better Tomorrow paid for nearly $104,000 into advertising for Cook, according to the latest available campaign spending records. And, in the stretch from Oct. 22 until the general election, For a Better Tomorrow put more than $355,000 toward ads for Cook and four other candidates, according to electioneering records, which are filed for any ads that run in public communications outlets. Until disclosures are filed, it’s unclear how much of that funding was spent on ads for Cook. 

Super PACs cannot coordinate directly with candidates.

Cook said he believes people support him because as a longtime general contractor, he understands what it takes to build housing from start to finish. He said development is seen as a bad word but that Maui County needs housing and the unions that backed his campaign represent a large portion of the local workforce.

“People give me money, they are not buying influence,” Cook said. “If anybody ever came to me and said, ‘I gave you a donation, and I need you to do this,’ I would contact my campaign committee to identify how much money they gave and send it back. Because that’s not what I’m about.”