Tom Cook (left) and Kelly King (right)

Maui County Council candidate Kelly King wants the Hawaii Supreme to void the results of the South Maui Council race and hold a new election.

King filed a lawsuit Monday with the Hawaii Supreme Court challenging the way votes were counted in the election that saw her lose to incumbent Tom Cook by 97 votes. In the general election count after the curing of deficiency envelopes, the county clerk determined the final count was Cook with 26,423 votes over King with 26,326.

Cook did not respond to a request for comment on King’s lawsuit.

In the lawsuit, King alleges that lawfully cast votes were not included in the final count in the race between her and Cook and that the Maui County clerk failed to follow standards established to deem a voting envelope deficient.

“It is very important that every lawfully cast vote be counted,” said King, who won each of the four precincts in the South Maui district this election.

The Maui County Clerk’s office issued a news release Monday saying its staff followed the procedures and criteria provided by Hawaii Administrative Rules. The release said one-third of all voters who received deficiency notices were able to cure their envelopes and their ballots were counted.

However, the lawsuit alleges that many voters learned their return envelope had been deemed deficient despite the signature they put on their envelope being the same as their ordinary signature.

After the general election, officials in the county clerk’s office said they still had 1,069 deficient envelopes — envelopes that had no signature or whose signatures did not appear to be similar to the handwriting on the voter registration, state ID or driver’s license.

King’s attorney Lance Collins said that, under Hawaii Administrative Rules, voted material received by the clerk is presumed to be that of the voter and voters may use a variation in their signatures. The lawsuit says a return envelope should be deemed deficient only if there is evidence to suggest the voter did not in fact return the envelope.

According to the lawsuit, there is also evidence of irregularities in the race between King and Cook as the national rejection rate for signature-related problems in the 2022 election was 0.4% of the mailed-in ballots and the state rejection rate was 1%, while Maui County’s rejection rate was 1.9%.

“It’s almost twice as much,” Collins said. “The deficiency determination rate is way higher than the national rate.”

King’s lawsuit says that, according to Honolulu statistician Brian Richardson, it is statistically improbable that this level of envelope deficiencies was caused by signature discrepancies.

According to the lawsuit, the Supreme Court is not permitted to further extend deadlines to cure erroneously deemed deficient ballot envelopes, so it is not possible to know what the true result of the election is.

As a result, King is asking the Supreme Court to invalidate the election results and order a new election for the South Maui County Council seat.