It was no surprise that Obama won the Hawai'i caucus; that was expected. What was not expected was the high number of people who showed up to vote.
Excitement about Obama, who graduated from Punahou School and represents Illinois, raised interest in last night's caucuses to record levels. Party officials had expected a larger-than-normal turnout and printed 17,000 ballots. It proved well short of the more than 37,000 votes cast and many precincts resorted to handing out scraps of paper to voters to write in their choice.In comparison, the last caucus in 2004 had a total of nearly 4,000, which had been considered a strong turnout.
The late local news showed pictures of people still in line to vote at 10:00pm over in Kailua. All over the state the lines resembled South Africa in 1994 when the first general election was held.
I suggested that the sure way to get voter turnout up here was to put a local guy on the ballot; Mom reminded me that when Jasmine Trias came in third on American Idol it was Hawai'i voters who overwhelmed the show's voting system.
Update: Start here and read down the thread for reports from various caucus locations around the state. Lost fan Ryan of The Transmission fame posted photos at Flickr.
Posted by Linkmeister at February 20, 2008 07:45 AM | TrackBackIt was a huge turnout on the Big Island! So awesome cause a lot of people here don't even vote in the general election, much less at the caucus level. Yay!
Posted by: ali at February 21, 2008 10:31 AMYou GO, Hawaii! People are turning out in droves to vote because we have a choice for the first time in 40 years!
Posted by: hedera at February 23, 2008 07:17 PM