Hawaii Launches Voter Campaign for Office of Hawaiian Affairs Elections

The Office of Hawaiian Affairs (OHA) and the State of Hawaii Office of Elections have launched a joint voter education campaign to prepare for the 2026 elections, in which five of nine trustee seats will be contested. The initiative responds to significant voter attrition in 2024, during which Chief Elections Officer Scott Nago reported that voters skipped OHA races in 49% of primary ballots and 42% of general election ballots.

To address these rates, the Office of Elections will spend more than $700,000 on digital guides and media campaigns. OHA is augmenting these efforts by publishing candidate questionnaires in its newspaper, Ka Wai Ola, hosting panel discussions, and partnering with educational and cultural institutions through the Our Kaiaulu Votes initiative.

The outreach effort focuses on clarifying the agency's mission to improve conditions for Native Hawaiians and the governance structure of the Board of Trustees. Organizers are also reminding the public that, following the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Rice v. Cayetano, all registered voters in Hawaii are eligible to participate in the elections regardless of their ethnicity.