HONOLULU (AP) — Voter advocates say Hawaii ought to arrange extra voter service facilities after a last-minute surge of curiosity led to hours-long strains for in-person voting on Election Day even because the state switched to a vote-by-mail system for casting ballots.

General, the state’s vote-by-mail election seems to have been a giant success, resulting in report numbers of voters taking part. Greater than 69% of registered voters solid ballots, the very best ratio for the state since 1994. The overwhelmingly majority voted by mail.

Even so, there have been lots of of individuals in line at Oahu’s two voter providers facilities when polls had been scheduled to shut at 7 p.m. Tuesday. It took about 4 hours for the road on the Kapolei middle to clear, delaying the discharge of election outcomes till about 11:30 p.m.

Honolulu’s election administrator and lawmakers expressed skepticism that extra services would make the distinction. Sen. Chris Lee, one of many authors Hawaii’s vote-by-mail regulation, stated growing the variety of voter service facilities is one thing that may very well be thought of, however boosting schooling to get voters to behave earlier than Election Day can be efficient to stop a recurrence.

Hawaii’s regulation requires ballots to be mailed to all registered voters. Voters might return their ballots via the mail or to specialised drop packing containers. The regulation additionally offers voters the choice to vote in particular person at voter service facilities, the place folks can also register to vote or get assist with casting a poll. The facilities had been open Monday via Saturday for 2 weeks beginning Oct. 20.

Sandy Ma, the chief director of Widespread Trigger Hawaii, a nonpartisan group that advocates for good authorities, stated she has been calling for extra of those facilities ever since she realized final yr there would solely be eight unfold across the state.

She stated Widespread Trigger helps vote-by-mail as a result of it improves voter turnout and permits voters to check their electoral selections within the consolation of their properties. But she stated some folks want in-person voting. College students and homeless people, for instance, transfer rather a lot and will not get their poll within the mail. Or folks may have language translation or assist studying their poll.

“Vote by mail works for lots of us. Nevertheless it doesn’t work for all of us. And democracy ought to work for all of us,” Ma stated.

Ma stated folks waited between two to 4 hours on Tuesday on the two voter facilities on Oahu, an island with about 549,000 registered voters. Widespread Trigger volunteers reported strains lasting one to 2 hours on Maui Island and in Kailua-Kona on the Huge Island.

Rex Quidilla, the Honolulu elections administrator, attributed the lengthy strains the big quantity of people that confirmed up on the ultimate day of voting, together with many who additionally registered to vote or replace their voter registration data. Voter registration takes time and cannot be automated, he stated.

He stated 4,520 folks confirmed as much as vote on Tuesday on Oahu. About 40 % of them had been registering to vote.

This quantity compares to a median of about 1,000 who confirmed up on the facilities every day over the earlier 12 days, a determine Quidilla known as “utterly manageable.”

Lee stated extra schooling to make folks conscious that they’ll vote early and never on the final minute would assist, as would efforts to counter misinformation that mail-in ballots are susceptible to fraud.

Lee stated unfounded allegations by President Donald Trump and others about voting by mail made some folks query whether or not they need to vote by mail despite the fact that there isn’t a proof such issues are widespread. Lee stated voting by mail is in some ways safer, given the signatures and bar codes on mail-in ballots and the choice voters have to go surfing to examine the standing of their ballots.

In distinction to some states the place there are efforts to restrict voting, Lee stated the intent in Hawaii was to maximise it. The record-breaking turnout “is a large win for everyone,” he stated.

“And so now the query is, how do you tweak the method going ahead to account for a few of these unexpected conditions and enhance it in order that subsequent election we will break information yet again and get an entire new technology of individuals concerned?” Lee stated.