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People are already calling this a boring election year. There’s little doubt who will win the presidential contest in Hawaii. And only a handful of state legislative or county council races will see spirited competition, the pundits predict.

We’re not buying it. And you shouldn’t either.

This year may be more important than ever to put people in office who will make a real change in the political power structure that continues to give short shrift to policies and practices that would allow more transparency and public participation on important issues.

Our election coverage this year will aim to surface candidates who are serious about changing the system that has allowed state lawmakers and county officials to look the other way as corruption, abuse of power and even political bullying has become the norm.

Money has long fueled the elections process but this past year finally gave us a glimpse of how arrogant political donors have become — admitting openly in the most recent federal corruption trial that pay-to-play is just how the system works in Hawaii. Jurors balked at convictions that would have sent a message that might have made contractors and other wealthy donors think twice about what they’re doing. And lawmakers, who benefit from all that cash, have consistently refused to make the changes necessary to improve that practice.

Two years ago, people were outraged when two state lawmakers were arrested and convicted for taking thousands of dollars in cash bribes. One Maui County official got $2 million in bribes to steer contracts to a certain company. They all went to prison but did anything really change?

This election is your opportunity to at least try to make your voice heard. We’re trying to help by giving you the information and the tools you need to make an informed choice. That will include focusing significant reporting on ethics and accountability and honoring the public’s trust.

There’s only about two months until the Aug. 10 primary so it’s time to start paying attention and really taking a look at who is running for office in your area.

Our reporters will be covering the election process as it plays out, including writing as many race profiles as we can, especially about the state and county contests that are shaping up to be competitive. We plan to pay particular attention to the Maui County Council races where every incumbent is running for reelection and explore how those people have been dealing with arguably the biggest issue in the state — the aftermath of the deadly Lahaina wildfire that has had statewide consequences.

We’re expanding our popular pop-up newsrooms and hosting election-related pop-ups in the districts that aready appear to have spirited primary races. That includes legislative races as well as mayor and county council contests on Oahu, Maui and the Big Island.

We’re planning these as somewhat structured “meet the candidates” events, with a civil discussion of issues and attitudes led by our reporters and editors. We’re happy to share your questions and comments, too, but these won’t be political free-for-alls. Depending on the venue, we’re trying to do them after work or over the lunch hour so more people will have a chance to come.

We’ll be putting out the list of times, dates and places soon along with how to sign up. But we’re starting with House District 20, which covers Kaimuki, Kahala and Kapahulu. That one will be on June 26, right here at Civil Beat’s Kaimuki office from 5 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. All five Democrats running for the seat being vacated by the retiring Rep. Bert Kobayashi have already confirmed they’ll be here.

We’ve already sent out our candidate Q&As to the 279 people who filed ahead of the primary. We’ll start publishing those this week. Our elections editor, Richard Wiens, is making a real effort to get all candidates to send those back to us in a timely fashion and we’ll definitely be calling special attention to the people — usually incumbents — who don’t feel they need to bother. We’ve been publishing the Q&As every election year since 2012 and they gets tens of thousands of views, especially once ballots are in people’s mailboxes.

The Q&As along with our election-related news stories and a guide to help voters navigate the elections process in Hawaii can be found on our Elections 2024 landing page. The overview report has links to the Hawaii Office of Elections, the state Campaign Spending Commission, political parties and watchdog organizations. You’ll also find Civil Beat’s own resources like our searchable database of financial disclosures filed by all elected officials and judges.

In 2022, we offered candidates the opportunity to submit their views on issues and published those in a Candidate Forum. But frankly, only a few took advantage of that space. So we’ve dropped that idea.

This year, we’ve already seen a few candidates attempting to use the comments section on stories to openly promote themselves or trash their opponents. Some of their vocal supporters have started doing that, too.

We’ll give you some leeway and see how it goes, but the comments section should not become campaign platforms or political rallies. Make your point and move on. Be civil.

Please review the commenting guidelines at the bottom of every story. The big ones: No name calling or mocking of people’s names, no personal attacks and no unsubstantiated factual assertions, misinformation or overgeneralizations. And no more than three or four comments per story. Please.

We’ve created a pretty cool commenting community on Civil Beat. To be honest, we don’t reject that many comments anymore because people seem to have learned we won’t tolerate the kinds of posts you see on other news sites. We want to keep it that way, especially with the temptation to view everything through the extreme lens of presidential politics.

Do your part to help us not let that happen. Hawaii has its own important issues that the public needs to get on top of and stay involved in. We’ll do our best as journalists to give you the information you need to make an informed choice, no matter where you stand on the political spectrum.

Let us know what else we can do to help you get engaged in this year’s elections. Your vote does indeed matter.