Hawaii Elections Commission creates investigative panels after weeks of public complaints about ballot chain of custody; subpoena motion tied 4-4

The Hawaii Elections Commission on Feb. 19 voted to form two permitted-interaction groups (PIGs) to collect information and documents related to public complaints alleging breaks in the chain of custody for mail ballots and discrepancies in vote totals on Kauai and the island of Hawaii. The vote followed more than two hours of public testimony and a series of motions, including a failed 4-4 attempt to subpoena ballot batch reports from the 2022 general election.

Public commentators urged the commission to investigate whether envelopes counted at county-level signature verification matched ballots reported by the state, and to require counties to produce chain-of-custody records. "These are official complaints," said Andy Crossland, a member of the public who asked the commission to open investigations into mismatched counts and chain-of-custody procedures. Jamie Detwiler, a former 2022 candidate who served as an official election observer, told commissioners the timeline for responding to audit requests had been slow and that communication from the Office of Elections needed to improve: "it just kept getting dragged out," he said.

Why it matters: Commissioners and observers told the meeting the issues raised affect public confidence in elections and, in some cases, raise statutory questions about how ballots were handled and…