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If you’re a registered voter in Hawaii, you’ve likely received your general election ballot in the mail by now.

Civil Beat’s candidate Q&As await you.

What will candidates do about the shortage of affordable housing? How can we move beyond the culture of pay-to-play politics in Hawaii? What’s the most important issue in their particular district?

We see a big surge in clicks on the Q&As during the two and a half weeks of voting by mail before each election, which is why it’s gratifying that 70% of the 141 candidates on Hawaii’s November ballots completed the survey.

Unfortunately, that means 30% of candidates declined our repeated — nearly incessant — invitations to explain in their own words why they deserve the support of their constituents.

We can’t imagine why any candidate would turn down that offer, but we especially take umbrage when incumbents don’t respond to the chance to communicate with the people they already serve.

For the primary, only 51% of incumbents answered the survey, and that’s now up to 69% for the general election. This is partially attributable to our repeated invitations, no doubt. We’re also not dealing with the exact same cast of characters, since some incumbents won outright (or, much more rarely, lost outright) in the primary. And in some races, incumbents went straight to the general election with no primary.

Incumbents, of course, generally enjoy big advantages in name familiarity and finances. So it’s even harder to understand why lesser-known and lesser-monied challengers don’t answer our questions. And yet, the response rate of non-incumbents is almost exactly the same as that of incumbents.

Another surprise: Only 62% of Republican candidates on the general election ballot responded to the survey, including three of eight running for the state Senate and 24 of 34 running for the House of Representatives. Two of the GOP non-respondents are incumbents, so that’s 13 Republican legislative challengers who aren’t talking — not a good strategy for a party struggling to gain relevance in Hawaii.

Candidates in nonpartisan races had by far the highest return rate at 86%. This included all 16 candidates for Maui County Council, all six candidates for Hawaii County mayor or council and 11 of 14 candidates for Kauai County Council.

Thanks to its dubious election system, the City and County of Honolulu has no races in the general election this year, just charter amendments.

In fact, across the islands there are far fewer candidates on the general election ballot this year —141 — than two years ago, when there were 207. There are fewer challengers this year, plus in 2022 all the Senate seats were up for grabs because of redistricting.

Still, this year’s 70% return rate on Q&As is a big improvement over the 63% at this point in 2022.

Readers seem to find the nonpartisan Q&As especially helpful when their mail ballots show up. Everyone gets to vote in every Office of Hawaiian Affairs trustee race, but that doesn’t mean they’re familiar with the candidates.

Similarly, voters in Maui and Kauai counties can cast ballots in all of their County Council races, so many of them have some homework to do.

There are two easy ways to find the candidate surveys you’re looking for. One is to go to the Q&A page, which is searchable by name or office in the keyword field. The other is to pull up Civil Beat’s general election ballot, where there’s a link to the Q&A of every candidate who responded.