The Hawaiian star. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu]) 1893-1912, 1900-10-08
THAT SERIOUS sNAG.

One of the most important problems
facing the community in Honolulu is
the question of how $500 voters can
vote in precinct, with only three
compartments for marking ballots in
the $40 minutes which the law allows
that it was physically impossible in it's
Issue of last Saturday now how is the
question going to be met.
Had the subject come up earlier it
could have been easily settled. Section
"a of thel act says;
f'Whenever the convenience of cleo
tors may so require the Minister of In
terror. shall set apart two or more pre-
cincts in each district; and each pre-
cinct SO established shall have it's sep
arate polling place; provided that no
change shall hereafter be made as
to the boundaries of any Precinct with
an sixty days of an election"
Thus the law did provide a remedy
but it had to be used at a certain time.
The Superintendent of Public Works
performs the duties of the Minister of
Interior and could easily have made
the required change But sixty days
before the election no one had thought
that any one precinct would register
1,5OO voters. In point of fact no one
gave the matter a thought, or if a
thought was given it was brushed aside
and forgotten,
In point of fact the data for estimat-
he of
precincts We're not to be had. The
plague and it's accompanying fires
moved a large population in to various
parts of the town. Though the majority
of those so moved We're Chinese and
Japanese, still a very considerable num-
Der were Hawaiians, and part Hawai-
ians who We're made voters by the Or
ganic act.
The census had to redistribute its
work after the plague, and it's officers
had very great difficulty in doing so sat
isfactOrily. The divisions of the pre-
Vious census which had in a g. eat meas
ure served as d guide when the work
was laid out last November and De-
cember, proved of no value when the
work bad to be faced in June, and an
entirely new distribution had to be
made.
Thus the Superintendent of Public
Works would be in exactly the same
quandery with regard to the precincts.
He had nothing to guide him as to the
probable number of voters per precinct,
and one can hardly blame him for not
realizing that some of the precincts
would register such large number of
voters At next election all this can
be remedied, but the question is how to
remedy the matter now.
Everything must be Gone according to
law, or the election will be vitiated. The
suggestion has been made that the
Electoral Registrar put in more shelves
for the marking of the ballots. But the
moment he did this he would run up
against the provision that there Shall
not (be) more than three voting shelves
or compartments, at or in which voters
may conveniently mark their ballots"
SThere might be something done with the
I word conveniently" but it does not
bar any shelves or compartments where
he may "lnconvenientlyn mark his bal
tots, OF course this is hair splitting, but
we will not get round the matter with
out some hair-plittng. 1t is not plain
sailing, and we must find some way out
of the blind alley we are in, or num-
Der of our voters will be disfranchised.
The time for the easy way out of the
difficulty has gone by. A precinct with
1900 voters ought to be subdivided into
five precincts. The multiplication of
voting compartments means liability
for communication in the polling room.
The inspectors could not supervise all.