 I'm Jay Fidel. It's the one o'clock block. And we're here to talk about community matters and more specifically to our survey results, because every month we do a survey, we send it out to everybody we know, we try to get a handle on how people think about things and feel about things in Hawaii and elsewhere, because it's on the internet, it goes everywhere. And so this month, that is for the month of July, just over, we had a survey called Elections During a Pandemic. Make that August. This was the August survey. We had it open for the first two weeks in August. And Catherine Nord joins me as she does every month. And we talk about the survey that we just finished. In this case, we just finished it on the 15th. Welcome to the show, Catherine. Nice to see you smiling face. All right. Thank you, Jay. It's good to be here to talk about elections. Yeah, this was called Elections During a Pandemic. And let's go through the questions and see what we can learn from what people said. First question was, are you registered to vote by mail in Hawaii? And that's very interesting, because the great percentage of, gee, it was 96, almost 97% of the people said they were registered. That is a very interesting example. And I think it's worth trying to learn something from that. Why are 97% of the people who answered this said they had registered only a very small percentage? What is it? 1.5% said no. And 1.5% said I don't know. So a question, what can we make of this, Catherine? Well, I believe that the viewers of Think Tech Hawaii are those who are very interested in what's going on in our government and do play a role, and they would likely be a bit more responsible in making sure that they're registered to vote. Yeah, I hope we do better than we have traditionally in Hawaii. Our voting record has been dismal, but maybe this year, because of all the trouble on the federal level, we'll have better voting around the state and county and federal level. Okay, so let's go to the second question. Primary ballots must be received by 7 p.m. on August 8th, that's passed already, but this survey was in process. Then the question we put to them, have you voted or will you vote by mail in the primary? And gee, this is really interesting. That 88% said yes. Serious. Only 6% said no. 3% said they didn't get a, I guess, a voting ballot. And yeah, that's it. What do we make out of that? That's very interesting. This was probably before August 8th, when it was answered, and everybody said that they had voted. Well, I think it's a lot easier to vote by mail, especially when you're kind of in a state, you're safer at home order. And a lot of people are, they have a little bit more time, maybe, and they would attend to those things. So I think that has something to do with it. And maybe they care more right now because a lot of people are pretty dissatisfied with how their lives are going right now because of the pandemic, and they feel that it's important to have their voice heard in the polls. Yeah, I think Hawaii can be proud of being a liberal state and having mail voting. We had mail voting before a lot of other states, and our mail voting was, you don't have to request it, you just get a ballot. That is a very advanced and progressive rule to have, and we have done well with it over the years. That doesn't mean we've voted in sufficient numbers, but at least we have a system we know that works. And maybe the fact that it's not working so well, and mainly we can talk about this more under Trump, and the Post Office Postal Service makes people want to vote using our Hawaii system of mail voting. Okay, the third question. Do you intend to vote in the general election by mail in ballot, mail in ballot on November 3rd? And you can see the answers. What do you think about that, Catherine? Well, I think it reflects what they did locally. They intend to vote. And I think people are pretty dissatisfied with their lives right now for many reasons economically as well as the pandemic. And so when people are not dissatisfied, they tend to vote. Yeah, but you didn't say anything about the heat of the election. I mean, we are all of us besieged by media telling us to vote, telling us this is the most important election of our lifetime of the century and beyond. And so I'm sure that has an effect on anything. Oh, I'm sure it does. And clearly, it also reflects those who are answering the survey to they're the type of people that are a bit more responsible and interested in our community and in our world because they're answering the survey too. Right. And we have to make a note on that. It's not everybody in the world gets the survey or answers the survey. And we don't have a selected survey demograph here. This just goes to the people that are on our mailing list and the people who respond. They make that choice themselves. So it's hard to translate this into a community-wide sentiment. On the other hand, among our community, it's clear that our community doesn't tend to vote on November 3rd. Okay, the next one is the mayor's races. Have you watched or listened to any of the mayoral candidate forums, mayoral candidate forums, debates, interviews, or other such programs? And I can tell you, Think Tech has done a lot of interviews with the mayoral candidates. So we're sensitive to that question. And the answer here looks like yes. It didn't reach everybody. It reached 64%. 30% said no. They hadn't seen any of that. And 3% said they didn't know about these programs. That's kind of interesting. And in terms of the open response, one of them said out of town. And another one said, nah, I read Civil Beat articles. Which is, that's to the credit of Civil Beat. So it does a lot of political coverage. As a matter of fact, it's this afternoon, Chad Blair of Civil Beat is going to appear in a couple of hours on Think Tech. Colin Moore and John Wahey. And they're going to talk about politics in Hawaii and beyond. Anyway, so what does this teach us, Catherine? What does this teach us about the mayor's races? I mean, one way to get information is to watch shows. Another way might be they might Google the candidates and look into that. Others may already have preconceived ideas. So they don't watch shows about the mayoral candidates. Maybe they already had someone in mind that they planned to vote for or they vote for someone that, you know, the person that their family votes for or something like that. I mean, there are other reasons why people make decisions. So I think it's amazing that so many watch those debates and forums and interviews. That's quite a bit. Yeah, I'm a little bit discouraged by the fact that more than just about 30% of the people we surveyed who responded to the survey said no, they hadn't looked at any of that. Because fact is that a lot of people are home a lot these days in COVID. They spend their time in large part watching television. I know everybody I know does. And the question is what they're watching. And the answer here in this case is they're not watching the political debates and interviews, which is that's discouraging in the sense that how much can you know? Maybe they're all reading civil beat. But I rather doubt that I think they're ignoring it. And then when they do vote, well, how many said they were going to vote? Well, there's also the issue of screen time because many people are working at home and they're on screens all the time and maybe they or there or there's childcare, grandchild care, those kind of things. There are definitely a lot of things that keep people away from watching. Yeah, but this is prime time. All of this stuff is okay. Okay, so I mean, early prime time, but prime time nevertheless. That would definitely make a difference. Yeah, I just wonder what what information they're getting to do their duty as citizens and vote intelligently with some evidence behind them. Okay, the next one is the mayor's races. Have any of these these things and the things are referring to our forums, debates, interviews and programs like that. Have any of these things influenced your support or vote for any one candidate for the primary election? And this is interesting because it's like 53% said yes, it has influenced. And again, about 30% said no. And we don't know how many of these 30% never watched anything. Maybe maybe these are the same 30%. They don't want to, you know, they don't want to see anything on television about this or or other programs that are not on television. Let's see if there's any not applicable. If I'm not applicable to me, I'm not sure why that would be not applicable, but maybe they're just in place. Okay, there are no specific responses to that. I mean, no, no general responses. So that's what we got. Where does this teach us that 50% or more than 50% have been influenced? Okay, I think maybe the not applicable to me are those that maybe didn't watch. So that's how they answered. And so I would almost think that those that should be equal to the number that didn't watch. But on the other hand, others interpreted as no. Perhaps people watched the that coverage, and they already had a preconceived idea or they were what they heard was consistent with what they already thought about the candidate. So it didn't impact them. Yeah, could be, could be out of town. Who knows. That's a hard one to opine. Okay, next one about mayors, mayors races, have you seen, heard or read any of the candidates promotional materials, websites, ads, flyers, and signs Lord knows is enough of that. And that's interesting, because that reaches more people. That's almost, well, that's 92.5% say yes. They, they've seen or heard promotional materials, websites, ads, flyers, or signs, and the no is only 6%. So can you can you make sense out of that? What does that mean? And at least in the context of all the other ranches we've been discussing. In Hawaii, most people have seen sign waving and there has been some of that. But I did realize the one day I went to downtown and I'm, I'm not in town. The one day I went I actually saw a sign waving and I had not seen it at all because I'm pretty close to home in my daily life with the pandemic. So maybe people are seeing less sign waving. I have gotten a lot of ads and flyers in the mail. So I've definitely gotten a lot of that. And probably saw a little bit. I probably looked at some things on the internet about candidates, but others may, you know, it seems like you're going to get some of that no matter what you're doing. You commented about ads and flyers, I think is relevant to what's going on now with Louis. Louis DeJoy, my favorite person, a special postmaster general person who is slowing down the mail for the benefit of Donald Trump. And hadn't thought about this, but in fact mail is intermingled, intertwined with the whole election process. It's not only the ballots, it's all those mail pieces that individual candidates send out to you. And, you know, that actually reaches a lot of people. And so if you don't have, if you take away their ability to send their literature out, you're affecting the election process. Well, you know, that impacts it in another way too, because with the pandemic, we have our computers, we have TV, we have mail. But if you cannot, as a candidate, you can't knock on doors because of the pandemic. So what you do, you're going to send more flyers out, or you'll try to, you may use the mail in that way a little bit more. So that is an impact. Yeah. Okay, we have a seventh question is Mayor's Races, how much importance do you place on the mayor's ability to respond to our current public health and economic crises? And it looks like, oh, gee, was 80% plus said it's very important. 16 plus said it's somewhat important. That's very interesting. And the remark that one person left, which I think is really worth examining, he says, or she, poor question, no one knows a candidate's ability to respond. The responses they have made are what's important. And that's what we can evaluate. And then he says, or she, Kimberly Pine seems to have the best heart and sense of the matter. Well, you can guess who that person is supporting. But okay, we have a statement of a poor question. But you know, and the first sentence is no one knows a candidate's ability to respond. The responses they have made are what's important. Okay, I'll go with that. Nobody knows anything for sure. It's all, it's all perspective is expectancy. But you have to judge them on what they say. That's why we listen to what they say. Comment? Well, you know, clearly, this is talking about the leadership of candidates and whether they would be able to respond to those important things. And I'm actually a little surprised that someone would say it's not very important because to me, it seems to be this responding to current public health and economic crisis, isn't that the essence of what what the mayor has to do right now? Of course, let's go to question eight, Honolulu prosecutor, the Honolulu prosecutor race, have you watched or listened to any candidate forums, debates or other such programs actually think that had a debate among all the prosecutor candidates before the primary? The answer is yes for 40, almost 45%, no for 52%. I didn't I didn't watch or listen to any forum debate or other programs. And one and a half said I wasn't aware of the programs, which is commentary. And then this guy says a woman says, I read civil beat articles. Okay. There you go. Civil beat again. So what do you get out of that, Catherine? Are people engaging enough? Well, with the prosecutor's race, normally in a normal election year, you wouldn't have hardly anyone pay attention to it. But because the prosecutor is not someone that would normally have as much notoriety, but post-KLOHA scandal, I think it's a big deal. And people see the importance of that position and are paying more attention. So you do have more people that are watching that. And you're going to give the press credit for making it, putting it in the public, in the public discussion. Let's move on. We're only we're not even quite halfway through. Honolulu prosecutor, have any of these, that means the forums and the like, influenced your support or vote of any candidate for the primary? And that was interesting, about half and half. Half, yes, that was 39%. And half, no, have not influenced 37%. And then we got this cryptic answer, not applicable to me. I'm not sure why they say that. Anyway, it looks like of the people who did know about it and participate, only about half were affected by it. Let's go to question 10. Honolulu prosecutor race, have you seen, heard or read any of the candidate's promotional materials, websites, ads, flyers or signs? And as you said, this was a this was an important election to a lot of people because of the context of KLOHA and the scandal and the federal investigation and so forth. That excites people to be involved. And in this case, 70% were paying attention to the promotional materials by the prosecutor candidates. What do you think? Well, it's, you know, we don't know these candidates or at least the general public doesn't know them because they don't see them on TV or see them in situations. They're, those candidates are usually in the courtroom. And so the general public, non-attorneys, they need that information and they would pay attention to it. That's true. We had all eight of them on our think tech debate a few weeks ago. And I didn't know a lot of them had never met them. They either prosecution or defense. And they came from various walks of life where I have, I have not met them. I wouldn't meet them. You wouldn't meet them either. So this was a great opportunity to get to see them in action. And some of them were impressive. Others were not. Let me go to the next question. This is question 11. Are there different campaign ads, materials, flyers or signs that you see helpful in general, deciding who to support or not support? I guess in this question, we're talking about all of the above. All of those candidates may or prosecutor what have you. Any interesting answer as well? Thanks for the campaign ads and materials and flyers. But only 27%, 28% said that those were helpful. 56% said they were not helpful. What? 9% said I haven't even noticed them. When I think of all the money that these candidates spend, that's really too bad. And then we got some specific answers from specific people. Personal knowledge is my basis. That's interesting. That person must know some of the candidates. Or these materials show an attitude or bias. That's interesting too. And then on a superficial level, we know who the old boys network peeps are already and we avoid them. What do you mean? We. One person said that he or she was a non-resident, so it doesn't matter. Let's go on to question 12. Do you think the election process, this is a big one, do you think the election process in Hawaii is generally free and fair? That's an important term given all the trouble and the controversy on the federal level. And interestingly enough, most people thought it was free and fair here. 71 or most 72% said that. 7% said it was not free and fair. 15% I don't know if that's enough to say. 3% said it's too early to say. That's interesting. And there was a specific, yeah, one person who simply answered said could be better. And here's an interesting answer. As a national guardsman called out to run a precinct 20 years ago when the lieutenant governor dropped the ball to run for Congress, I have limited confidence in the fidelity of Hawaii's elections. So what do you think about this? Are they right when most of them say that the elections are free and fair in Hawaii? Well, they appear to be. But apparently there is at least one person who has some information otherwise. It seems like it is. It seems like the ballots were counted properly, but I think that would be the perception and that's how it was answered. Let me lump the next two questions together. Question 13. Are you confident that the best candidates will win in Hawaii? And that's a very interesting answer. Almost 60%, 58% said no. Not confident that the best candidates will win in Hawaii. And then there's a question that directly related. Are you confident that the best candidate for president of the United States will win? And the answer was, again, largely no. I mentioned a minute ago that 58% thought the best candidates would not win in Hawaii. On the federal level, on the president level, the answer is no. 55%, not quite as high, did not think that the best candidate for president would win. So what are those two things tell us? You know, Katherine, does that speak of confidence in the system, confidence in the candidates? What does it speak? Well, we all know that one person loses and one person wins. And we all know that when we vote, oftentimes the candidate we vote for does not win. So, you know, people who vote for one candidate, they would think that if the other candidate wins, the best candidate was the candidate they voted for. So they would naturally say that that is not true. The best candidates don't win. So I think it's logical that you're going to have at least 50% in for federal that it is going to say that the best candidate doesn't win. I'm not sure about local because local, well, I don't know, it kind of makes sense to me. People are unhappy with their candidate not winning. Yeah, and I read them together because I think this in terms of the confidence and system and all that, there's a relationship, one affects the other. We're not clear exactly how that works, but there's some relationship. Okay, we've got a few more. Do you think we should retain the electoral college for presidential elections? And this is interesting because there's been a discussion about it for the past couple years anyway. And 55% said no, we should not retain the electoral college for presidential elections. On the other hand, that would require a constitutional amendment. And boy, lots of luck on that one. That's interesting that that many have been convinced through whatever the media has said about it, that we should not retain the electoral college. Let me move on, Catherine, because we're almost out of time here. What is your general level of confidence in the elected officials in our Hawaii state government? That's question 16. And I guess the leader is not confident, not so confident. Second one is I'm somewhat confident. There are some who are extremely confident and some not confident at all. But I guess the big one is not so confident. That's 40%. Somewhat confident is 30, 37%. Only 3% are extremely confident and not confident at all is 7%. 10% is very confident. So all over the map, except the leader is not confident or somewhat confident. So kind of a dishwater kind of array of answers here. What do you think? I mean, what does this tell us that people don't trust politicians? Why? We have such a difficult time right now. We've got COVID, we've got economic challenges stemming from that. It's a tough time to be a leader. I'm not surprised that people are not happy because no matter what they do, they're going to be unhappy because it's a very difficult situation. Yeah, but you know, this is very interesting. In question 17, we asked pretty much the same question as to county governments here in Hawaii. And somewhat confident was 43%. Very confident was only 10%. Extremely confident was less than that. It was four percent, five percent. So I guess this is a parallel, except that it seems to me that people are, let me see if I got this right. Yeah, people are more confident of county government in Hawaii than they are of state government. What do you think about that? Well, it means they don't like, they're not a fan of Ige and they think Caldwell and the other mayors are probably doing a better job, possibly. Yeah, as one person said, extremely confident others are lacking. That was state government and the other was county government. No specifics on that. Okay, question 18, what is your general level of confidence in the Hawaii delegation, the federal delegation to Congress, our congressmen, women and our senators? The answer is somewhat confident leads at about 38%, almost 39%. Very confident as follows, that's good, 20, 22%. And there were only a few that were not at all confident. Well, some were extremely confident, but that was not that much. That was only 9%. So somewhat confidence is the winner on that. And I guess that's, that speaks to the fact that we don't really follow them that closely, particularly now in the time of congressional dysfunction. What can, for example, what can they do? They're all Democrats. What can they do in Congress when Congress itself is not doing anything because of McConnell and the Republicans in the Senate? So it's hard to have a level of excitement about our delegation. But we like them. I think we like some more than others, but we like them. Do you have any thoughts about that, Katherine? Well, it's all over the board. So people have different opinions, I think. And I think sometimes we don't really know what they're doing because we don't hear from them as much. However, Ed Case was talking about the postal situation today on the news. So I think we're hearing a little bit from them. So that's good. Yeah, I wrote, I wrote to a Louis DeJoy, my favorite person, post office person, and told them what I thought of him because his, his, his email address is on the web. You can find it easily. And I sent a copy to all of our delegation. The one person, the one member of the delegation who responded to me with a, a significant substantive response was Ed Case. And I really appreciated that. Well, it must have done something because the, I heard that the postmaster of general has changed his mind and will be delaying changes until after the election. I got that news today. So maybe it was your email that did it. Well, my brainwaves, one or the other. I think so. I don't believe them anyway. That's just me. Okay. Okay. Question 19, what is your general level of confidence in our president, Donald Trump? And believe it or not, 10% said they were extremely confident in Donald Trump. This is really interesting. The 6% said they were very confident and somewhat confident, 6%. So, you know, when you take all of that, you get, you get like 20% have confidence here in Hawaii or at least the people who responded. 20% of the people who responded to the survey are at least somewhat confident in Donald Trump. You know, Donald Trump, the guy who has made such a special mess of the COVID and the economy, that Donald Trump, they're on the on the balance. However, 71 and more percent said they were not at all confident. Others said they were not so confident. So the total of those two is going to be about 70, 73, 74%. So that shows you that at least 70% of the people who responded don't like what Trump has done. I'm not surprised. What surprises me is that 20% of the respondents have some confidence in him. I don't know where that comes from. Thoughts? That reflects the makeup of our party system in Hawaii that we do have a small number of Republicans. And I think that that would, I think that goes along party lines in Hawaii. I think you're right. Okay, then we had, now mind you, this is dated to some extent because things have moved on, but President Trump has said he wants to postpone, remember that, the November elections because mail in voting fraud, what is your reaction to that? And we found that the leading group, 57% said, I think such a postponement is illegal. And I think it is illegal. And 19% said, I think a postponement is unjustified, even if it is legal. The other smaller categories where I think Congress should determine a compromise postponement, lots of luck on that, 6%. And the last one was, oh, two more. I think President Trump could postpone the election for a reasonable period of time, 5%. That would be completely unconstitutional. But hey, I think President Trump can postpone the election. As he sees fit in his discretion, nobody said, nobody agreed with that one. So interesting that we only had, only had 56, almost 57%, saying that this attempt to postpone was illegal and could not be done. What are your thoughts on that? People educated about why would they answer anything other than that particular category? I think this reflects that people generally are ready for a federal election and perhaps they don't, they're not lawyers or haven't delved into the legalities of it, and they're answering based on what they think. So I don't know that I would judge those. I would just think that that's what they think, that's what they thought at the time. Yeah, okay. Now last question, maybe the most interesting question of all, and it's not dated. As the President Trump has said, he may not accept the results of the November presidential election if he loses because it will have been rigged. What is your reaction? And I guess the biggest number of responses is to the category called, this will be a huge disruption to our democracy. He should step down 57%. Then the next one is, this will make him a sore and unreasonable loser. He should step down. That was a 10%. The rest were smaller categories. There was a category, which I find interesting, almost tongue-in-cheek. Well, I'll give you all of them. His claims will have to be resolved by Congress. In the meantime, he should step down. Nobody agreed with that. They probably felt that Congress would not be able to decide it. The next one was, he should be able to stay in office until the claims have been resolved by the courts or Congress, and that was 7.46%. The last one is my favorite one. He should be able to stay in office if he or his attorney general find that the election was rigged, and that was 6%. Most interesting. On the specific answers, we had one said, precedent and or law should be followed. Thank you. Next one is, he's doing what he does best, playing to his base. Just like the Democratic candidates are doing fomenting nationwide rioting. You tell me which is more damaging, the most damaging, to our democracy. Next one is, you mean like the Dems are calling Trump election rigged? Trump's election rigged? I'm not sure what that means. We should resolve the two U.S. constitutions. That's interesting. Our laws and processes will determine the legitimacy of the president's claims at that point. Next one, this is really interesting, how people responded. They're really passionate. Blah, blah, blah. This person says, why waste time speculating? In 2016, Hillary Clinton vowed to accept the election results, and for almost four years, she and the DNC, Democratic National Committee, have claimed Trump stole the election. Quit speculating. Both sides throw stuff like this out to see what kind of reaction it generates. It's just a distraction and part of an information war campaign. And the last, you know, separate comment is he's working too hard to avoid being ousted from office, so he should be ousted from office. All right, just the last one and your last comment. Go for it, Catherine. Well, you know, this is a long party line, it's a bit as well for Hawaii. And yeah, I mean, it looks like most people think it would be highly disruptive and I think it will be if that occurs. Yeah. Okay, we'll have more, we'll have more questions along these lines and further surveys. The next one is what for September and then October and then we'll have an election. And we'll cover all kinds of stuff in those two months remaining before the election. Thank you so much. Really appreciate it. Catherine, Norr, one of our hosts on, what is it, e-sports? Wide World of e-sports. Wide World of e-sports. Okay, that's tomorrow. So watch that. What time is it? Moon. Okay, all right. Watch Catherine tomorrow and watch us again, the two of us, when we review, you know, the survey for September. Aloha. All right. Aloha. Thank you, Jay.