Steve Tataii, the late Patsy Mink's erstwhile opponent in the Second Congressional District, received almost 15,000 votes; furthermore, he states that he would have received "over 80,000 if our chief election officer had acted according to his duties by Sept. 21, and, by law, requiring me to get enough votes to continue to the general election."
The number of votes that he did in fact receive would have been plenty had he been the only candidate in the Democratic Primary.
Neil Abercrombie, the incumbent in the First Congressional District, in that same election received about the same amount of votes as did Mink — 72 percent. Had Abercrombie received just one vote, however, then his name would still appear on the Nov. 5 general ballot, because he ran unopposed.
I ran against Abercrombie as a Democrat a couple of elections ago. Like Tataii, I was a "bread truck" candidate, meaning that, had a large vehicle hit my opponent early on, I might conceivably have won, since I was the only other candidate. Yet, the election official would not have cast thousands of additional votes for me.
Richard Thompson
San Diego, CA
