Hawaii Senate Primary Election Update: There's A Dem Nominee ... For Now?

by Robert Thomas, InverseCondemnation, August 15, 2014

Our little hurricane-related election dust-up has made the New York Times (see "Senator Brian Schatz Wins Closely Fought Democratic Primary in Hawaii") and the Christian Science Monitor ("Brian Schatz wins Hawaii primary: What role did tropical storm Iselle play?"). Now that the delayed-but-not-delayed-too-long election has been conducted and a Democratic Party nominee anointed, everyone's wondering what -- if anything -- is next on the law scene.

Being a Saturday, we should have been out enjoying the nice weather, but we were in the office when KHON2 dropped by to find out more:

With as little as a few hundred votes separating some of the primary races, there’s some hope for losing candidates before November’s General Election.

We spoke with an attorney who specializes in election law.

“The most obvious approach is what’s called an election contest and that’s very unusual circumstance where you would go straight to the Hawaii Supreme Court,” said attorney Robert Thomas.

Candidates would have until this Thursday to file a complaint. The Supreme Court would then have four days to make a ruling.

For Congresswoman Hanabusa, there are other options. On Thursday, a judge denied Hanabusa’s temporary restraining order to postpone the Puna elections until a later date, claiming residents needed more time.

“So there’s always, of course, perhaps, the option of appealing the judge’s ruling from the Big Island on Thursday because he said the election could go forward, but now maybe depending, they can always appeal that,” Thomas said.

See the entire report here.