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It was less than three months ago that Hawaii saw the worst voter turnout in any primary election since statehood in 1959.

Only 269,912 of the 839,618 people registered statewide — a measly 32.1% — bothered to fill out a ballot.

But turnout for the Nov. 5 general election is already on a path to exceed the Aug. 10 numbers. As of Monday, 226,646 ballots had been received by the offices of the four county clerks.

“It feels like a pretty good initial start — the more the merrier,” said Jon Henricks, the clerk for Hawaii County.

Returned ballots on the Big Island totaled around 35,000 as of Monday, not including ballots still to be mailed in or retrieved from drop boxes, said Henricks.

With a week still to go in voting, it seems possible that Hawaii County may come close and even exceed the 50,490 primary turnout.

Henricks said some county voters actually received their ballots as early as Oct. 17, a day earlier than they were scheduled to arrive. Some voters then promptly completed and turned in their ballots that same day.

Rex Quidilla, elections administrator for the City and County of Honolulu, said in-person voting at Kapolei Hale and Honolulu Hale was going “pretty well.”

Ballots on Oahu turned up in some mailboxes as early as Oct. 15. Voter service centers also opened from 11 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. through Saturday in select neighborhoods .

As of Monday, 155,097 ballots had been received by Oahu officials, including 837 from in-person voting. The primary turnout was 177,108.

Quidilla urged voters not to wait to complete and submit their ballots until the very last day. Ballots must be received by 7 p.m. Tuesday by the County Elections Division. And that’s when voter service centers and places of deposit also close.

Moana Lutey, the Maui County clerk, had the same message for voters on Maui, Lanai and Molokai.

“We encourage them to come in early,” said Lutey, who said her office has been busy, too. “We’re afraid we are going to get hammered on the 5th.”

Maui’s returned ballots totaled 24,192, Lutey said Monday. The primary count was 29,026. As on the Big Island, some voters received their ballots a day earlier than expected.

A voter service center will open on Thursday and stay open through Election Day at the Lahaina Civic Center. Same goes for voting service centers at the Mitchell Pauole Community Center on Molokai and at 450 Jacaranda St. in Lanai City.

The returned ballots for Kauai County as of Monday numbered 12,537, according to the clerk’s office. Just over 600 came from in-person voting. The turnout in the primary was 14,721.

In spite of the apparent enthusiasm for the 2024 general election, it’s not clear whether voter turnout will be anywhere near the 579,000 ballots cast statewide in the 2020 general election. That was the highest turnout since 1994.

Like this year, it was a presidential election. But 2020 was an unusual year because of the Covid-19 pandemic, and it was the first year that voting by mail was implemented statewide.

And the turnout was still among the lowest nationwide that election.

In 2022, Hawaii lawmakers for the 26% of households that speak a language other than English to vote.

This year, for the first time, there are ballot translations in Tagalog, Ilocano, Japanese, Spanish and Hawaiian — something that election officials are hopeful will spur turnout.