Stanley Chang: More Voters Are Over 90 Than Under 30
That would seems like an awful lot of voters over the age of 90 — and a bunch of young people who don’t vote.
While being interviewed on Hawaii News Now during Tuesday’s election returns, Honolulu City Councilman Stanley Chang said, “There are more voters over the age of 90 in Hawaii than under the age of 30.”
Councilman Chang was making a point about the need to engage young people in the political process.
“There are some really chilling statistics,” he said, adding “In fact, the voter turnout for young people is the lowest it’s ever been here in Hawaii.”
“So it’s really imperative that we engage with younger voters and we make the case why these issues matter to them. How is this relevant to their daily lives? And that’s going to be key to the continued success of our state in the future.”
We agree. But we were surprised by his numbers, so we looked into it.
Is he right?
Maybe. We couldn’t find an answer.
Chang has not responded to phone calls asking to clarify if he was referring to total registered voters, or the number of those who voted.
Stanley Chang with supporters.
Civil Beat
The County Clerk’s office isn’t going to finish cross-referencing the names of who voted until February. But we did confirm that there are more registered voters over the age of 65 than there are under the age of 30. According to a report provided by Rex Quidilla at the Hawaii Office of Elections, among the 706,890 registered voters, 99,137 were under 30, and 177,479 were over 65.
According to Quidilla and Honolulu Elections Administrator Glen Takahashi, that’s the most detailed voter demographic information they have.
We don’t know how many voters exist over the age of 90, and neither does the state. But that data is available, just not to the public.
Takahashi explained why that is.
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If you voted, you’ll remember signing the box next to your name and address. This is recorded, and it’s what the County Clerk’s office is going through the next few months.
Once the office compiles this information, it’s sold to political data processing companies. The County Clerk’s office doesn’t include date of birth, because that’s considered private.
Still, that data exists somewhere, and there are companies that make a living finding it and selling it to political organizations who use it in crafting campaigns.
It’s possible Chang, who ran unsuccessfully for Congress this year, has one of those private reports. But just based on public information, we have to rate this claim Unverifiable.
