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Winter 1998 | Spring 1999 |
 President's Message (Jean Aoki)Changes to the State Excise Tax? (Astrid Monson)Member SurveyCoordinated Community Response System to Domestic Violence (Val Kanuha)Fairest Among Thousands (Betty Smith)Making Democracy Work: Campaign Finance Reform (Toni Worst)Wetlands & Agriculture: Public Interest and Public BenefitsLeague Local News - Hawaii CountyLeague Local News - Kauai CountyLeague Local News - Honolulu LeagueEducation Committee (Mary Anne Raywid)General Election Statistics for 1996 & 1998Population Explosion: 6 Billion People in 1999Scorecard on Gambling PositionsModel UN Project (Helene Hale)State Board ActionsWeb Page |
League Local News - Kauai CountyKauai County had the largest voter turnout of all the counties in Hawaii. The count for total registered voters there was 33,063 with an actual turnout of 24,366 or 73.7%. Kauai League deserves a lot of the credit. Their efforts to educate and turn out voters concentrated on multiple fronts, according to Susan Wilson, Kauai League President. As in several previous election years, they produced voter guides, both print and video. Producing these guides is a huge effort, involving not only public outreach on what questions to ask candidates but also in refining format and formulas and rules for candidates' responses. The print guide was made possible through the cooperation of their local newspaper, The Garden Island, which included it as a special section a couple of weeks before the primary election. The voter video guide aired on Kauai's public access television channel those same weeks. "It is astounding how popular the public access channel is on Kauai," comments Wilson. LWV of Kauai also participated in the State Elections Office's Wiki Wiki Voter Registration signing up 900 voters in four days. On October 17, a well-attended forum on the Con Con question and the two proposed constitutional amendments on the ballot was held. The same-sex marriage issue was the "hot" topic. The forum was taped and shown 6 to 7 times on local public television. In advocating in a very visible way league's position on Con Con, several members spend hours and hours holding signs along the highway. Two League members also did exit polling in Anohola for Voter News Service. They reported almost 100% cooperation for exiting voters. Kauai Board-Action According to Wilson, Kauai League takes the position that it can only support a domestic partnership bill that includes all rights that accrue to regular married couples including child parenting rights. A Campaign Finance reform Committee was formed to support State League's and Hawaii Clean Elections Coalition's efforts for full public funding of election campaigns and to bring about other campaign reforms. Kauai League is considering the idea of celebrating the passage of the 19th Amendment in a rather big way. They are probably going to take the program from their 75th Anniversary Celebration to the schools, possible during March, Women's History month. An invigorated Membership Committee is now in place. Several new members joined as a result of seeing their October 17th forum.
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