Hawaii Recount Laws
This information was updated 10/24/2022
Paper ballot (hand marked paper ballots and ballot marking devices)
For more details, visit Verified Voting.
Retabulation
In 2019, Hawaii passed legislation requiring close-vote-margin recounts.
“As the ballot typically contain[s] various contest[s] beyond the contest that triggered the recount, the system may read all marks on the ballot, when the ballots are scanned....As the marksense ballot voting system, is a mechanical tabulation system, and the ballots were intended to be read by the devices associated with that system, the election, officials, will to the extent possible, use voting devices associated with the system….” Hawaii Administrative Rule 3-177-763.
Close vote margin
Less than or equal to 0.25%
Vote count difference (not percentage based)
Initiated automatically
“The chief election officer, or the clerk in the case of a county election, shall conduct a recount of all votes cast for any office or ballot question in any election if the official tabulation of all of the returns for that office or question reveals that the difference in:
(1) The number of votes cast for a candidate apparently qualified for the general election ballot or elected to office and the number of votes cast for the closest apparently defeated opponent; or
(2) The number of votes cast in the affirmative for the ballot question and the number of votes cast in the negative for the ballot question, including when applicable, the tabulation of blank votes,
is equal to or less than one hundred votes or one-quarter of one per cent of the total number of votes cast for the contest, whichever is greater.” HI Rev. Stat. § 11-158.
This information was updated 10/24/2022 using the 2021 Hawaii Revised Statutes and the Hawaii Administrative Rule 3-177, updated 7/6/2020.