Nine Hawaii State Senators are sponsoring SB 954, to provide for a top-two system. The bill is badly worded. It says that it applies to all elective office, which implies that it includes president. Yet Hawaii doesn’t have a presidential primary, and the bill doesn’t provide for a presidential primary.
Also, the bill does not redefine “political party”. Existing law defines parties in terms of the vote for their nominees. Because there are no party nominees in a top-two system, none of the state’s political parties would be able to meet the vote test, because no party would have any nominees.
Also, the bill’s sponsors don’t understand that top-two systems are unconstitutional unless the ballot language on party labels has wording to tell voters that the party name doesn’t mean the candidate is a party nominee. That is why the California and Washington ballots put “prefers” or “party preference: (whatever)” on the ballot next to the name of each candidate.
HOW MANY NEW AGE BELOW AVERAGE DUMB DEMS IN HI —
INCAPABLE OF COPYING THE CA LANGUAGE ???
PR AND APPV
Section 12-1 which is unchanged, says that Chapter 12 does not apply to presidential elections. This should overrule the language in the new section 12-12 that says “all elections”.
It is remarkable how little is needed to be changed in order to convert partisan primaries into a Top 2 open primary. This is due to Hawaii’s pick-a-party primary, where voters affiliate anonymously, and nonpartisan candidates qualify for the general election ballot via the primary. All candidates file in the same manner.
The bill is flawed in not amending or repealing 12-21 and 12-31, which provide for arrangement of the primary ballot, and selection of a party ballot by a voter.
Section 12-8 has a procedure where a party official may object to a candidate claiming to be a party member pursuant to party rules. Such objections are heard by a court. The procedure may be flawed in that it permits a candidate to knocked off the ballot, rather than merely barred from assuming a party name.
You are correct about party qualification, though that could probably be reworked based on the primary results. But does Hawaii have a rationale for such a standard? It would be simpler to require every party to qualify by petition every (10) years. Hawaii only requires 0.1% of registered voters to sign a party petition, which is 757 voters. Or simply require a political party to maintain some level of activity asis done in Florida. Requiring party conventions every two years with some quorum requirements might work. This would permit use of county coventions to account for the cost of travel between islands. If 1/1000 is required for formation, 1/10000 is not unreasonable for active participation in party governance, so 76 convention attendees, a $100 annual registration fee, and compliance with canpaign finance laws.
11-118 dealing with vacancies in nomination needs to be reworked.
11-72 allocates precinct officials on the basis of party strength, this could be modified to be based on primary votes.
Hawaii nominates gubernatorial and lieutenant gubernatorial candidates indepenently but they run as a tandem, but they run as a team in the general election. This doesn’t work well with Top 2. The simplest solution is to have the candidates run as a tandem in the primary. There is a somehat vague requirement in the constitution that these candidates be partisan nominees.
Poll watchers may be appointed by political parties. There does not appear to be a provision for the same by individual candidates. That should be permiitted (it might be constitutionally required).
Hawaii orders ballots by name, with no ballot rotation. In Hawaii, this may violate the 15th Amendment, because of different name distributions associated with race or ethnicity.
Qualification of presidential candidates is in 11-113, rather than Chapter 14. It really belongs in Chapter 14.
Qualification of presidential candidates should be the same as for governor, though the current requirement of 25 signatures may be too low. The candidate should personally file, naming a vice-presidential candidate, and four elector candidates. The application could also include the endorsement by a party chair. This should also greatly reduce the likelihood of faithless electors. Under current law, the elector candidates are chosen at the state convention. Hawaii could hold a conditional runoff.
Your concern about the ballot language may be overblown. That was not the ruling of the SCOTUS. They rejeected the facial challenge. Washington won on remand through use of “prefers”. This means it was sufficient, but not necessarily necessary. In Hawaii, a party may reject a candidate’s declaration of party affilation. If a candidate indicates that they are a Democrat, that does not mean that Democrats favor that candidate, but is simply a statement of fact.