Election season for some candidates means exhausting days waving signs along the side of the road, shouldering vicious personal attacks and glad-handing dozens of potential campaign donors.

But that鈥檚 not the case for everyone.

There are 12 candidates running unopposed this year. That means all they really have to do to ensure they get the job this fall is vote for themselves.

There are two candidates for state Senate (Kalani English and Breene Harimoto), six for state House (Romy Cachola, Ty Cullen, Cindy Evans, Ken Ito, Marcus Oshiro and Karl Rhoads), two for Hawaii County Council (Dru Kanuha and Dennis Onishi) and two for Maui County Council (Stacy Crivello and Riki Hokama) who face no opposition.

The Hawaii Campaign Spending Commission鈥檚 associate director, Tony Baldomero, compiled a statistical snapshot of where things are at this election season.

By the numbers:

  • 102 of the 128 seats in the state and its four counties are up for election
  • 303 candidates filed nomination papers to run (but four nonpartisan candidates vying for聽governor will likely be removed from the ballot because there are聽no nonpartisan candidates for lieutenant governor)
  • 11 incumbents are not seeking re-election because they are either running in another race or have stepped down from elective office
  • 165 candidates have filed the Affidavit to Voluntarily Agree with the campaign expenditure limit,聽24 of whom are incumbents
  • 38 candidates have filed a Statement of Intent form which means they plan to seek partial public funding ($145,696 was disbursed in 2014)
  • 1 public funding application has been approved for $2,160. (Rose Martinez, running for House District 40)
  • 138 fundraisers have been held this year (Gov. Neil Abercrombie has held 15; legislators held 49 during the 2014 session, which is eight more than 2013)

VOTE

“Bad officials are elected by good citizens who do not vote”- George Jean Nathan

Theresa Thompson via Flickr

Check out Civil Beat’s 2014 Hawaii Elections Guide here.

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