Congratulations Hawaii! The voting by mail law I helped write increased people voting by more than 60% over the 2016 primary election! 406,425 votes were cast, by far the most since statehood. This could mean the end of Hawaii’s traditional low voter participation, empowering our local communities in a way we haven’t seen in generations. I helped structure our voting by mail law to make it easier for people to vote. We structured it based on the best practices of states that have successfully voted by mail in the past, as well as our own experience with absentee voting which has seen a majority of voters already voting by mail in recent years. But these results are significantly better than any other vote by mail state. That means this is because of you - local residents getting involved. In addition to the huge increase in people voting this year, we also saw no major hiccups, instances of fraud, or anything else out of the ordinary. So a huge mahalo goes to our colleagues and the Office of Elections who worked together to help us pass this law. Most of all, mahalo to all the new voters this year for doing our civic duty and making this a record-breaking success!