Early walk-in voting started today at sites across the state. HPR’s Wayne Yoshioka visited the Honolulu site and filed this report.

Early Walk-In Voting Starts Statewide

Voters filed in at a steady rate for early walk-in voting at Honolulu Hale. Rojo Herera never voted early but will be out of town next month. He voted Republican all the way, including for Governor.

“I voted for a friend of mine, Ray L’Heureux. I’m a small business owner, okay, and the Democratic Party is not favorable for small businesses. Ray brings a lot of great, fresh ideas and I believe he has the executive leadership, management style that we need.”

Kim Lingbald has lived in Hawai’i for 52 years and settled down in Makiki. She voted for the Democratic challenger for governor.

“I chose to vote for Colleen Hanabusa. I believe we need many changes and I found out that she was the one that stepped up and did the homework and corrected the errors, I felt that’s the type of leader we need in office. And, sometimes, maybe women do a harder job than men do. You know, I believe.”

Katrina Souza lives in Kane’ohe and starts teaching at public school Tuesday. She decided to vote early for the Democratic incumbent.

“Governor Ige. I’m a teacher so he’s helped us in public education. And, you know, it was hard during our contract negotiation times and he came through so, you know, our union’s supporting him so I wanted to support him as well.”

A number of voters did not want to disclose who they actually voted for but said they were familiar with the issues, like Mililani resident Teresa McCann.

“I’d rather not say. I always vote here since I was 18 years old and I’m 72, now. I’ve lived here all my life. I even ran one of the polls one year in Waikiki. So, I’m very aware of what we’re voting for.”

Voters who did not register can go to the early walk-in polling sites with proper identification and vote on the Big Island, Maui, O’ahu and Kaua’i. Honolulu City and County of Honolulu Election Administrator, Rex Quidilla, says a majority of voters are on track to cast ballots before official polling stations open, August 11th.

“The last election – 2016 primary – we did about almost 10-thousand voters at our sites at Honolulu Hale and Kapolei Hale. We’re seeing a huge increase in the number of requests on our absentee mail side. I think the last time around, we did about 62 percent of ballots were cast before Election Day. That’s combined with early vote and absentee mail.”

Quidilla says 154-thousand O’ahu voters

have already requested absente mail-in ballots, exceeding the number requested in the 2016 general election. The last day to request a mail-in ballot is August 4th with Early Walk-in voting continuing through August 9th. Wayne Yoshioka, HPR News.