2011 House Bill 140 (Proposing an amendment to the Hawaii constitution regarding blank votes)
- Introduced by Rep. Gil Riviere (R) on January 21, 2011, prohibits the counting of blank votes and over votes in determining whether a proposed constitutional amendment has been ratified.
- Referred to the House Judiciary Committee on January 24, 2011.
Not counting blank or spoiled votes in the outcome of an election – what a concept.
This session, 3 bills introduced by Republicans and Democrats, are seeking to not count blank votes, over votes or spoiled votes when it comes to the outcome of proposed amendments to the Hawaii constitution.
House Bill 140 wants to prohibit counting these invalid votes to determine whether a proposed amendment has been ratified.
House Bill 540, introduced Rep. Gene Ward, (R), proposes an amendment to the state constitution to exclude blank ballots, over votes, and otherwise spoiled ballots from the total number of votes counted for the question of whether a constitutional convention shall be convened.
And Senate Bill 950, introduced by Sen. Suzanne Chun Oakland, (D), amends the Hawaii constitution to require a majority of more than 50 percent of votes cast to ratify a proposed constitutional amendment and to exclude blank, spoiled, or invalid ballots from the tally of votes cast.
With the concern of not counting spoiled or blank votes coming from both sides of the aisle, why haven’t any of the committees where these bills have been referred scheduled a hearing yet?
To contact the committee chairs to see if and when these bills will be heard, go to:
To see the status of the bills, go to:
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