Yes, Panos Prevedouros Really Is Male
Panos Prevedouros is a man after all.
I know that might seem obvious. But for about an hour Tuesday, I wasn’t sure. Let me explain. Sometimes we run into bizarre twists when we’re reporting stories, and unlike most news organizations, we believe in sharing our experiences with you, whether they’re good, bad or strange. I’d put what I found out about a mayoral candidate at the city clerk’s office into that last category.
Tuesday morning I drove down to Honolulu Hale to go through the voter registration rolls as part of our effort to reveal the personal sustainability practices of the gubernatorial candidates. I was looking to gather basic information from each candidate’s voter registration card.
The goal was to obtain the home address of Neil Abercrombie, James “Duke” Aiona and Mufi Hannemann, as well as those for expected mayoral candidates Kirk Caldwell, Peter Carlisle, Donovan Dela Cruz, Prevedouros and Rod Tam and for Congressional incumbents and hopefuls Daniel Akaka, Charles Djou, Colleen Hanabusa, Mazie Hirono and Daniel K. Inouye.
(Civil Beat was there researching for you whether the candidates practice what they preach regarding sustainability. Water use data for any address is a public record. We also wanted to be able to look into what they drive to tell you about their energy use. To answer both questions, we needed their addresses, which we didn’t have. And we wanted to confirm that they were eligible for office. Civil Beat was not planning to publish the addresses.)
It turns out that state law, specifically of the Hawaii Revised Statutes, makes voters’ residential addresses confidential. A helpful clerk pointed me to two cardboard lawyer’s boxes in the office’s small, brown waiting area. Each was full of lists of voter rolls. Each entry included the voter’s full name, the district and precinct designation, the date they registered, their gender and a number corresponding to their registration affidavit — the only public information.
Confidential information included in the affidavit includes social security number, date of birth, telephone number, residence address, mailing address and citizenship status.
The most accessible pile of records covered those voters with last names starting with the letter “P” — Prevedouros being the only such name on my list. I located Panos’ record somewhere in the middle of the stack:
Further to the right than my camera captured, Panagiotis D. Prevedouros’ “sex” was identified as “F” — presumably for “female” and not “frequently.” I made a note of it, packed the pile of papers back into the crate as best I could, and returned to our Kaimuki office before my parking meter ran out.
At first, I thought maybe Panos had not yet registered to vote as of July 9, when the list was last printed. Panagiotis could be a relative, or even a complete stranger. But Prevedouros has run for mayor before, and [pdf] for the position laid out in Section 5-102 of the require that the mayor be at least 30 years old and a “duly qualified elector.”
A quick Google search revealed that Panos’ real full first name is in fact Panagiotis, leaving us with two possibilities: Either the listing was wrong about his gender, or Panos is hoping to become the first transgender mayor of Honolulu.
I called the Office of the City Clerk to confirm what I’d seen. Yes, they told me, the listing does say “F.” I was placed on hold while a clerk found a microfilm reproduction of Prevedouros’ actual affidavit to see if Panos had actually selected female. It turns out it was a data entry error, she told me. Panos Prevedouros really is a man.
The lesson: Even public records need to be checked out.
