Honolulu Weekly

It’s a wonder that the neighborhood board elections took place at all this spring. When the City cut the budget for paper ballots just three weeks before the elections, city officials celebrated it as a forward-thinking move, touting the fact that Honolulu was to be the first municipality in the U.S. to conduct an election entirely by electronic and telephone ballots.

Meantime, the Neighborhood Commission had to find a way to make online and telephone voting possible in a three-week period, and then find a way to let people know about it.

Honolulu had had some experience with online voting from a 2007 pilot project, but the Neighborhood Commission, hoping to integrate the online option over time, didn’t expect to abandon paper balloting so soon. City officials estimate they saved about $100,000 by limiting the election to Internet and telephone voting, but with about 6 percent voter participation across Oahu in 2009, a dismal turnout was even worse than expected.

“We expected it to be hard,” said Bryan Mick, a community relations representative with the Neighborhood Commission Office. “I would have been most surprised if going online had made voting increase. But we had hoped to be a little closer to the mark than we were.”

Voters complained about the online system being confusing and said that the telephone option took too long. Without receiving paper ballots in the mail as in years past, many people didn’t even realize the election was going on. Even some of those who set out to vote gave up in frustration. But there was one heartening surprise.

“It was interesting that the Koolauloa Board stood apart,” said Mick. “They had contested sub-districts, really close votes and every sub-district was way above the average for voter participation.”

Koolauloa’s district includes the quiet country towns of the greater Kahuku area like Punaluu, Kahana, Laie and Hauula. As with many neighborhood boards, those who lead and attend neighborhood board meetings are close to retirement age–which leads Mick to believe that those who participate in elections are usually in the same demographic–a demographic that, on average, doesn’t have a lot of experience with computer technologies. What’s more, those living in the district have a much lower rate of Internet access than elsewhere on the island and, in Kahuku at least, a per capita income of under $17,000, which is 25 percent below the Hawaii average. Lower income populations with a lack of Internet access generally exhibit less civic participation, but in an election that had even dutiful voters giving up at the keyboard, Koolauloa still turned out in relative force.

Mick believes it can all be traced to one 71-year-old woman.

“They have a very active librarian in Kahuku,” said Mick. “I heard that she was encouraging people to use the computers at the library and helping them do it.”

Indeed, Fran Corcoran is known around Laie as “the library lady,” a nickname that fits for a couple of reasons–most obviously because she’s branch manager of the Kahuku Public Library–but mainly because if you ask her about herself, Corcoran will tell you mostly about the library. She spent decades as an elementary school teacher and got her library science degree in the 1960s, so that the Chicago-area school where she taught at the time could qualify for the federal grant to build a library for its students. She’s been in Honolulu for nearly two decades, and has retired more than once, only to return to work–first as a teacher and now as a librarian.

When asked about the role she played in her community with regard to the neighborhood board elections, Corcoran chuckles at the idea that she personally made a difference, but is quick to describe how the library she runs did.

“Our community has a lot of people who don’t have access to a computer at home, so I said, ‘can’t the community vote online here?’ And the answer was ‘yes,’ but only if they have a library card,” said Corcoran. “But there are lots of reasons that people don’t have a library card. They might not have identification that says they’re a resident of the state, or they might have a very large overdue fine and not enough money to get it out.”

So Corcoran got to work. She got approval to use a generic library card for anyone who wanted to vote but didn’t have one. She printed out information on all the candidates and posted it to a big bulletin board in the library. She posted instructions on how to vote online. And she asked those who came through the library if she could help them vote.

“I think it’s wonderful that we voted at higher rates!” said Corcoran. “In a small community, you know everybody, or you know a lot of people if not everybody. One of the neighborhood board members is a teacher here. Another one has been doing a lot of work with bridges and sewers and trying to make sure we don’t flood as we usually do. So the people that are on the board are neighbors and friends. And they’re active. They’re not somebody who is sitting in an office somewhere, unknown.”

And for those in Laie, getting to know other members of the community is only as difficult as finding the Kahuku Public Library. It’s a place to read and learn, of course, but also to come together with neighbors. Corcoran has initiated a series of free seminars on everything from Hawaiian herbs to pickling cucumbers to cooking tofu. She partnered with others across the North Shore to start a book mobile service. When the only movie theater in Laie closed, Corcoran successfully acquired a permit to show films at the library. This summer’s most popular offering? Twilight.

Corcoran said that she sees civic participation as a way to bring the community together, but also as a way to promote the library as a central and essential part of the community. In turn, Corcoran finds that she isn’t just bringing people to the library, but building a community around it.

“During the neighborhood board elections, I did remind people that this is their library and their chance to vote easily, you know, come in, use our computers, do your voting, but then also take out books while you’re here!” said Corcoran with a grin. “I am not sure if I’m a voice for the community but I am a voice for our library as a whole and getting people to know that we exist. If people are active in the community through the library, maybe they’ll look out for the library, too.”