Sixteen candidates for Kaua`i County Council and three for Kauai’s seat on the state Board of Education will find out by tonight which two of them will be on the sidelines after turning the corner in the primary election and
Sixteen candidates for Kaua`i County Council and three for Kauai’s seat on
the state Board of Education will find out by tonight which two of them will be
on the sidelines after turning the corner in the primary election and heading
for the general election in November.
The election-day polls for the
primary opened this morning at 7 and will close at 6 p.m. Officials expect a
good handle on who’s in and who’s out within a few hours after the last vote is
cast.
The 14 top votegetters for council who remain after ballots are
tabulated will compete for seven seats in the Nov. 7 general election.
Few
veteran election watchers expect any of the seven council incumbents to finish
out of the primary running.
There were 17 candidates originally, one was
lost when Bob Meyers of Kalaheo died while in Washington, D.C. for a Hawaiian
sovereignty demonstration earlier this summer.
Two of the nine remaining
challengers – William (Kaipo) Asing and John Barretto – are former council
members and are considered strong opposition for the seven incumbents. The
latter are Ron Kouchi, Bryan Baptiste, Gary Hooser, James Tokioka, Daryl
Kaneshiro, Billy Swain and Randal Valenciano.
A former civil defense
director for the county, Cayetano “Sonny” Gerardo, is also a known commodity
with voters.
Joseph Prigge, Kauilani Kahalekai, Anne Donovan, Rhoda Libre,
Rodger Ridgley and perennial candidate Robert Cariffe are the most likely
candidates to be battling it out to avoid elimination today.
Three people
are running for the Board of Education seat occupied by Mitsugi Nakashima.
Challenging the incumbent from Kalaheo are longtime educator Sherwood Hara and
William Georgi.
The third-place finisher will be eliminated, while the two
survivors will fight it out in the general election.
Voter turnout for the
primary is almost always lower than for the general election.
Absentee
walk-in balloting, which ended Thursday, has been running slightly behind the
1998 primary. But with a presidential race wrapping up in November, that is
expected to change in the general election.
Although Kauaians can’t vote in
it, the only other primary race of local interest here is for mayor of
Honolulu. The incumbent, Jeremy Harris, is a former Kaua’i County Council
member who once ran for mayor here. He has two opponents – Mufi Hannemann and
Frank Fasi, an ex-mayor of Honolulu and also a former Kaua’i resident while
serving in the Army during World War II.
Staff writer Dennis Wilken
can be reached at 245-3681 (ext. 252) and [
HREF=”mailto:dwilken@pulitzer.net”>dwilken@pulitzer.net]
