Maui and Kaua‘i county officials have been sued in federal court amid ongoing questions about the state’s management of voter rolls during the 2024 election.
The Virginia nonprofit Public Interest Legal Foundation filed a federal lawsuit in 2023 against Hawai‘i's Chief Election Officer, Scott Nago. That suit argued that Nago had failed to comply with federal laws requiring him to make statewide voter records publicly available.
In July, PILF appealed that case to the U.S. Supreme Court, although that court has not yet agreed to hear the case.
In the meantime, however, PILF’s case is spreading. On Friday, PILF sued the Maui and Kaua‘i county clerks — Moana Lutey and Jade K. Fountain-Tanigawa, respectively — on similar grounds in U.S. District Court, arguing the two had failed to comply with the National Voter Registration Act of 1993.
According to the suit, in February, PILF sent both clerks a request to release reports about the number of undelivered absentee ballots in the 2024 elections, as well as a list of the registered voters who submitted ballots that year.
Lutey reportedly responded by advising PILF that their request may violate rules of ethics and, eventually requested that PILF provide a signed affidavit affirming that PILF’s request was for an “election or government purpose.”
Fountain-Tanigawa, meanwhile, simply repeatedly told PILF the county did not maintain the data PILF requested.
Both clerks’ failure to provide the information requested constituted a violation of the NVRA, PILF argued. The law requires counties to maintain election records for at least two years.
Therefore, the suit alleges the clerks are guilty of violating the NVRA in two ways: by failing to maintain voter records for two years, and by failing to make those records available for public inspection. The suit concludes with a request that the court order the clerks to make what records they have available to PILF.
The counties have not yet responded to PILF’s filing. Neither clerk responded to requests for comment.
But the suit ties into ongoing questions about the 2024 election. Listed as co-plaintiff in the suit is Ralph Cushnie, a member of the Hawai‘i Elections Commission, who has for months argued that election officials mishandled or misreported ballots during the election two years ago.
Cushnie has alleged that the number of mail-in ballots submitted in Hawai‘i County vary wildly between county and USPS records, a discrepancy of more than 19,000 ballots, he claims.
In June, Cushnie attempted to bring his arguments to the Hawai‘i Supreme Court, requesting that the court compel election officials to provide a full accounting of the 2024 ballots before certifying the 2026 election. The Supreme Court rejected that petition.
But Cushnie is also involved in yet another legal matter against Nago. In July, Cushnie — along with fellow election commissioner Tamara McKay — petitioned the Hawai‘i Supreme Court to intervene in the workings of the Election Commission itself. The petition claims that the Elections Commission has been unable to meet for more than a month because of a lack of support by Nago and the Office of Elections.
According to the petition, the Commission is without a chairperson after former chair Michael Curtis’ term expired at the end of June. Cushnie and McKay requested operational support from the Office of Elections to convene a future meeting without a presiding officer, only to be told that they needed a quorum to do so.
Cushnie argued in the petition that the Commission cannot reach quorum without convening a meeting, creating a Catch-22 that “would make it impossible for the Commission ever to convene, which cannot be the law.”
The petition requests that Nago immediately provide the administrative support necessary to allow the Elections Commission to reconvene. A decision in that case is pending in the Supreme Court.
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