On November 3, 2026, voters on Oʻahu will consider 20 proposed Honolulu Charter amendments. Question 5 asks whether the City and County of Honolulu should adopt a new way to choose local leaders, which could create a big change in our local politics.
As detailed in part 1, the proposal, if approved by voters, would require ranked choice voting for electing the Honolulu mayor, city council members, and prosecuting attorney starting in 2032. The question is not simply technical; it goes to the heart of how Honolulu defines fair representation and majority rule.
At the moment, with the national mood deeply polarized, talking about democracy can be touchy but our local ranked choice voting debate takes us right to the heart of how democratic governance should function here. Many noteworthy people have opined on the big picture:
- “Democracy is worth dying for, because it’s the most deeply honorable form of government ever devised by man.” – Ronald Reagan
- “Democracy is not something you believe in or hang your hat on, but something you do. You participate. If you stop doing it, democracy crumbles and falls.” – Abbie Hoffman
- “Democracy is the recurrent suspicion that more than half of the people are right more than half of the time.” – E.B. White
The political culture in Hawaiʻi so often appears to differ from that of other states, cities, counties, and the country. Election competition in our state has long been less about Democrats versus Republicans and more about rivalries within the Democratic Party, which often come down to the power of interpersonal relationships, ethnicity, family traditions, and community loyalties. Shifts (of nearly everything) in our state tend to come slowly, and we often lean towards the status quo.
Nonetheless, a question is now before us: Are we voters, a comparatively apathetic bunch as measured by participation on the Hawaiʻi Dashboard, hungry for a new approach? And, more specifically, is ranked choice voting a viable alternative to our current system of primary and runoff elections and, assuming the city clerk’s required public education program is effective, able to permit the will of the electorate to remain front and center?
In 1947, Winston Churchill told the House of Commons, “It has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.” In diverse and pluralistic democracies, no system can meet each person’s personal notion of perfection.
Proponents of ranked choice voting believe such a change could encourage additional or less-established candidates to run, lead to increased civility, reduce municipal expenditures on election execution, and make a dent in the public perception that insiders nearly always win Hawaiʻi elections.
Ranked choice voting is touted to encourage more candidates to compete and to avoid the “spoiler” effect within multi-candidate races in which a non-winning candidate on a ballot can, by drawing votes from other candidates perceived as viable but suboptimal, impact which other candidate actually wins.
Supporters contend that ranked choice voting could temper negative campaigning through the inherent need of candidates to appeal to and earn a high ranking from supporters of rival candidates. This system could reduce election-administration expenses by eliminating August primary elections, which (in Hawaiʻi, at least) often draw poor turnouts anyway. Supporters also argue that ranked choice voting could increase voter interest and turnout for general elections.
On the other side, opponents of ranked choice voting note that it will not benefit all voters and could decrease public confidence in elections. This method of election could divorce voting from important and needed debates and create confusion when completing ballots. Depending on the city clerk’s eventual rules and ballot design, duplicate rankings, skipped rankings or other ballot-marking errors could affect how (and if) later preferences are counted.
Ranked choice voting may provide a distinct advantage to voters who have more time and access to information about candidates, and critics argue that exhausted ballots could complicate claims of majority support. FairVote itself acknowledges that ranked choice voting winners sometimes do not receive a majority of total votes cast. The process as a whole could be perceived as not only too complex but running counter to the longstanding tradition in America of one person exercising a one-choice ballot per single-seat race.
Indeed, within ranked choice voting, a ballot can become exhausted if a voter ranks only one candidate and that candidate is eliminated, or if every candidate the voter ranked has been eliminated. The ballot, although valid and counted in earlier rounds, contains no ranking for a candidate still in contention and is hence no longer in play. Some voters may find such a voting process discouraging, or may feel compelled to rank all candidates, even if some or most are unpalatable, just to avoid ballot exhaustion and remain able to participate in the election process.
Critics also point out that even in ostensibly non-partisan county races, a single November ranked choice voting election could make it nearly impossible for any Republican-leaning candidate to ever break through in Honolulu’s heavily Democratic electorate, particularly if Democratic voters rank other known Democrats as later choices. A minority candidate might gain second- or later-choice support from voters whose first-choice candidate is eliminated, but that candidate would still need extraordinarily broad support to prevail. Whether ranked choice voting would help or hinder minority candidates locally is uncertain and would depend on the field of candidates and how voters rank them.
Reliable research would normally help us think this through more carefully. A 2021 study found little evidence that ranked choice voting increased overall turnout, but showed possible increases in participation by younger voters. Another study from 2021 found mixed results in civility of candidate tweets but reported that newspaper coverage in cities employing ranked choice voting used significantly more positive and fewer negative words than coverage in comparable cities using conventional single-choice elections.
Inevitably, empirical research about ranked choice voting should increase our understanding, but current studies do not establish a single, conclusive account of the effects of ranked choice voting. The mixed evidence means that confident claims — whether positive or negative — should be treated cautiously, and reminds us that most of our political opinions are based on habit, ideology, and personal preferences. Sociologist William Bruce Cameron said, “Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted.”
If our process to elect the Honolulu mayor, city council members, and prosecuting attorney does change this November — or even if it doesn’t — we might also hope for another effect. We need all candidates to focus on specific proposals and ideas for addressing the problems we still need to confront: matters such as reducing property crimes, lowering housing costs, repairing streets, and expanding workforce opportunities.
Reviewing and sorting a list of candidates under ranked choice voting may be an answer to our voter-participation malaise, or it may not. Regardless, now is a fine time to read the ballot language, learn about the process, consider the competing claims, and prepare to make an informed decision about Charter Amendment question 5. Don’t miss the opportunity on the general election ballot: pay attention and vote.
Peter S. Adler of Guild Consulting can be reached on peter@guild.im. The Hawaiʻi Dashboard presents a new You know Hawaiʻi? question every day.
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