Early walk-in voting begins for general election

Early walk-in voting for the general election began on Tuesday.

Based on the number of registered voters. The city clerk expects larger voter turnout for the November 6 general.

Tuesday morning when Honolulu Hale opened for the first day of walk-in voting, the short line was moving quite smoothly as voters chose between electronic and paper ballots.

"I did the traditional paper and it flowed very well there are people directing you at every step," said Chuck Pearson, Honolulu Voter. "And there was no unnecessary complexity or delays really well organized "

Three separate walk-in voting locations are now open on Oahu.

Only the Honolulu Hale location has both paper and electronic voting.

Both voting locations at Kapolei Hale and the Pali Golf course only have paper voting options.

All voting locations are open from 8am to 4pm from Monday to Saturday until November 3.

"We are usually open for a 10 day period and if it falls on a weekend we are open on a Saturday," said Bernice Mau, Honolulu City Clerk. "So we have always opened on a Saturday. It is just that I think this year it is a bit unusual we have two Saturdays."

With the extra Saturday to vote, city officials are confident that they should be able to handle an increase of registered voters for this general election.

In the last general election in 2010, there were 464,387 registered voters on Oahu. This year that number has grown to 474,554.

Another reason that lines shouldn’t be too long is more than 119,000 absentee ballots have been mailed out – meaning almost a quarter of registered voters will be mailing their ballots in.