2016 Hawaii Revised Statutes
TITLE 2. ELECTIONS
12. Primary Elections
12-31 Selection of party ballot; voting.

§12-31 Selection of party ballot; voting. No person eligible to vote in any primary or special primary election shall be required to state a party preference or nonpartisanship as a condition of voting. Each voter shall be issued the primary or special primary ballot for each party and the nonpartisan primary or special primary ballot. A voter shall be entitled to vote only for candidates of one party or only for nonpartisan candidates. If the primary or special primary ballot is marked contrary to this paragraph, the ballot shall not be counted.

In any primary or special primary election in the year 1979 and thereafter, a voter shall be entitled to select and to vote the ballot of any one party or nonpartisan, regardless of which ballot the voter voted in any preceding primary or special primary election. [L 1970, c 26, pt of §2; am L 1973, c 217, §2(i); am L 1974, c 34, §2(c); am L 1979, c 139, §9; gen ch 1985]

Cross References

Constitutional provision, see Const. art. II, §4.

Case Notes

Where plaintiff claimed provisions requiring an open primary were facially unconstitutional because allowing voters to associate anonymously with a political party violated a party's First Amendment right of free association: (1) plaintiff's purely facial challenge to the open primary failed; and (2) the court could not assess whether plaintiff's associational rights were burdened without considering evidence as to the extent, if any, of that burden. 982 F. Supp. 2d 1166 (2013).

Selection of a party's ballot does not automatically make voter a party member. 56 H. 519, 542 P.2d 1272.