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You couldn’t turn a corner or drive down a street in Kona this past August without tripping over a yard sign. Big Island mayoral candidates had banners posted and there were signs on nearly every corner supporting Hawaii County Council candidates.

But as general election day nears I can’t help but wonder: Where did all of the signs go?

In even numbered years most Americans expect to choose their representatives on the first Tuesday in November, but here on the Big Island the signs are gone. Candidate websites are shut down.

And the incumbents? They are smugly settling into their second, third and fourth terms.

What happened?

I’ve got a unique perspective on this because this year I helped to recruit and support 10 candidates for Hawaii County Council. We fielded candidates in six of the nine districts on the Big Island with four of us running in the same district.

Our goal? To force incumbents to answer to the public in the general election.

The results? Only two of the nine districts will be on the general election ballot. The rest were decided in the August primary.

In Hawaii County District 7 the incumbent was returned to the County Council, having received votes from only 11% of eligible voters. Eleven percent. In fact, a majority of voters either voted for a challenger or withheld their vote entirely.

The same was true in six other districts where the failure to take into account the intent of voters who withheld their vote delivered the seats to the incumbents.

Needless to say our community won’t be having a dialogue about the issues that plague us — lack of infrastructure, high taxes, out-of-control housing costs, lack of opportunity and continued outmigration. Instead, we’ll get two more years of the same.

And voters who were looking to make a change in November? They’ll find that their local officials aren’t even on the ballot.

Restricting ballot access has been a common tool of the 20th century’s most despotic regimes who have discovered that they can hold on to power by simply creating the appearance of free and fair elections.

By denying challengers ballot access, repressive regimes like China, Venezuela and Russia are able to claim that their leaders enjoy broad support even in the face of withering public opinion. Elections are a fiction they use to legitimize their grip on power.

Here in the United States primary elections are intended to help whittle down the number of candidates so that voters aren’t overwhelmed with dozens of candidates in the general election. Well, that and entrenching the two-party system. They are not intended to deny general election voters a choice.

Here in Hawaii the electoral system has been rigged so heavily that incumbents don’t even need to run in the general election. Add to this the fact that mail-in voting shrinks the primary election window to 44 days (from the end of the filing deadline to the day that primary ballots arrive in the mail ) and you start to understand why our problems are not being addressed. Incumbents are practically untouchable.

Politicians in Hawaii don’t answer to the public. They answer to the unions, lobbyists and special interests who understand how the system is rigged and turn out their members during the primary season. The rest of the public is simply along for the ride.

Of course this can change, but why would it? Why would incumbents who get a free ride want to answer to challengers?

Here on the Big Island they just got a huge raise and they answer to no one. One of them, Holeka Inaba, even introduced Bill 141 this session to extend their terms to four years and reset their term limits. He wants to serve another 12 years in office. Honestly, after my experience in this election cycle, I’m surprised it didn’t pass.

“Betrayal Of Democracy”

This past year I read “The Dawn of Everything,” which recasts history through the prism on indigenous communities. One of the themes that stood out to me is that indigenous communities tended to vote with their feet. When they didn’t like a despot or a dictator they would simply pack up and leave.

Perhaps one of the reasons Hawaii’s population is shrinking is the fact that people are fed up. They don’t see a path to meaningful change.

If the offices of the candidates closest to you aren’t even on the ballot, why bother to vote? Why hope for change when change is structurally impossible?

If Hawaii is going to create a future for our children we need real change. And the first step toward that change is to have free and fair elections where the public has real choices.

At a minimum the public deserves the opportunity to vote on every eligible office in every general election. Anything less is a disservice to the public and a betrayal of our democracy.

Here in Hawaii County that means a top-two primary system that forces incumbents to face a challenger in every general election. Incumbents would still have a significant advantage, but at least their offices would be on the ballot.

And the signs? They will stick around until November.