Election Objection re Hawaii State Senate seat in District 19
Excerpt from Matt LoPresti petition for recount filed with Hawaii Supreme Court November 26, 2018
…The poll worker at the 41-02 precinct who had openly advocated for my defeat and spread misinformation about me was Michele Golojuch. Her and her entire immediate family has been participating in and in some ways leading a public misinformation campaign to conduct a character assassination against me for months before the general election and she and her immediate family also participated in filing a bizarre and recklessly fabricated slanderous complaint against me trying to remove me from the Democratic Party of the State of Hawaii. The complaint, as I understand it, was dismissed but the damage was done by spreading slander and misinformation on social media to thousands and thousands of voters to cause numerous democrats to not vote for me. These consistent and repeated actions based on a personal and political vendetta to ruthlessly slander me by this group and others perpetrated its own fraud on the voters in my district and pursuant to HRS section 11-172 may have itself influenced some to vote against me. If only 58 voters, approximately 0.45% of voters, voted differently because of this and other slanders or were miscounted or mishandled by her or anyone else, that would affect the outcome of the election, but to have learned that one of them was actually in engaged in the counting, handling and/or physically altering and manipulating ballots as described by the precinct captain, well, that that disturbing fact alone is enough in itself to throw the entire election results into doubt.
The reason is that having someone who has a clear motive to harm me politically and not have me win, who also happened to work at a polling location where fishy things occurred, who also participated in some kind of action where ballots were initially not counted, set aside, crumpled up and then physically altered and manipulated further by polling officials after the polling place was closed jeopardizes the integrity of votes cast that day at that precinct. So, it is demonstrably true that someone who had a clear motive to act against me and my candidacy also had the opportunity to physically alter ballots because of unanticipated circumstance, and it is possible that this person's bias may have affected her behavior and thus the integrity of the election itself.…
PDF: LoPresti Complaint
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HNN: “Candidate who narrowly lost bid for state Senate seat alleges ballots were mishandled” -- A spokeswoman for the state elections division confirmed that the scanner at Ilima (41-02) was out of commission at the beginning of voting, but said it was quickly replaced and ballots were not mishandled.
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Official Statement from Honolulu County Republican Party Chairman Brett Kulbis on LoPresti Election Fraud Accusation and Challenge
News Release from Honolulu Republican Party Nov 26, 2018
Honolulu, Hawaii -- “After stealing his opponent’s campaign flyers, it’s an outrage that crooked Democrat politician Matt LoPresti is now trying to steal an election by challenging the clear outcome resulting in his defeat and his deserved eviction from the State Capitol. The Democrat-run state elections office has already come down against Democrat LoPresti’s ridiculous position that there was any hanky-panky on Election Day in Ewa Beach, unlike the corrupt electioneering and hanky-panky that LoPresti engaged in during the 2018 campaign. The Hawaii State Supreme Court will certainly toss LoPresti’s bogus challenge alleging ‘possible fraud’ and claims of ‘altered ballots’ and reaffirm the victory by Republican victor and incoming state senator Kurt Fevella.”
“My firsthand knowledge from 2016 of LoPresti’s reliance on abusing power through false accusations is based on his multiple attempts to get the Campaign Spending Commission and the State Courts to do his dirty work. Despite everyone knowing he’s a thief, LoPresti still plays the victim card like a maestro. And here he goes again. Though desperate to hang onto his political career, the voters of Ewa Beach have already spoken loudly by saying ‘Goodbye, Matt LoPresti’. I’ll be extremely surprised if his party or his former colleagues come to his defense.”
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