Senate Committee on Ways and Means (WAM) - chair: Baker, vice chair: Tsutsui

Thursday, February 22, 2007, 9:30 a.m. Room 211

Testifier: JoAnn Maruoka, Legislative Committee member, LWV-Hawaii

Click here to view SB156 SD1

This is to correct a statement made in SSCR No. 346, and to provide clarification of the League of Women Voters of Hawaii testimony. The SSCR No. 346 stated that the Judiciary and Labor Committee "received testimony in support of this measure from the League of Women Voters of Hawaii..." In fact, our testimony limited support for election by-mail to special elections only, because the League of Women Voters of Hawaii does not have a consensus position in support of all by-mail election. As we stated in our written testimony that was read during the hearing, we "would like to comment in support of S.B. 156 with regard to a specific use of election by-mail. We did a study on vote-by-mail several years ago, but could not reach consensus on whether to support an all by-mail election. However, we did support and continue to do so the use of vote-by-mail for special elections which need to be scheduled outside the time for regular elections." Thank you for the opportunity to provide this correction and to clarify that our position on S.B. 156 is support only for vote-by-mail for special elections.