Ron Paul Won Hawaii - the Big Island, that is

The number of provisional ballots submitted at the "caucus" for Districts 31, 32, and 33 were 54 out of a total of 402 ballots, or 13.4%. I saw about 4 of these when the Chair decided to open the sealed ballots that included a voter registration form that people filled out on the spot. They were opened for the reasons indicated in my other comment in this thread. All were for Ron Paul. This caucus was won by Rick Santorum with 128 counted ballots. Mitt Romney had 118 and Ron Paul only 51. However, my area is one with a lot of evangelical Christians, who tend to support Santorum, and people from upscale neighborhoods who tend to support Mitt. Very different from the university areas or the Big Island and Maui where more liberty-oriented people can be found.

These provisional ballots, however, are ripe for vote manipulation, especially since they were not publicly counted last night. What is the chain of custody for these slips of paper which can blown around with the political wind? Two of the people observing last night objected to the provisionals not being publicly counted before sending them to the GOP main office. One filed a formal protest.

Now, you are saying that they will be counted later, which suggests to me that no one will be watching the counters. So, "bye-bye Ron Paul votes" is certainly a possibility. I agree that these might be enough to put Ron in second place, especially in areas different from mine which may have a higher proportion of provisional ballots.

The GOP chair, prior to the election, estimated that about 5,000 people would turn out. This is because the "caucus" (not really a caucus) represented a new process for Hawaii. Previously, people met and chose delegates to the state GOP convention in their respective districts. The turnout, however, did not meet expectations (only 4,250).

There was a lot of confusion as a result of the new procedure. People were allowed to vote even though they were from another district. There votes were segregated with their registration and considered to be provisional ballots. I observed the voting in the combined meeting of Districts 31, 32, and 33. Votes were counted publicly and then phone to the head office. They were later hand carried by the chair to the GOP office along with the provisional ballots (n = 54),which were not publicly counted in our meeting. The chair indicated that he had been instructed by the main office not to open these and count them. However, because of confused procedure, some of these ballots were opened to insure that procedure had been followed but the ballots were not all observed and counted. Inititally, they were supposed to be in sealed envelopes, but they ran out of envelopes and the papers were folded and stapled in most cases. All of the ballots that I was able to observe, maybe 4, were votes for Ron Paul. How these were handled at the main office I will have to leave to the report of those who, hopefully, witnessed the tally.

Come on you know people from other states all flock to his events!

There were hundreds of people on jetskis and speed boats visiting from CA, WA, etc.

In Hawaii the complete opposite is true. Ron Paul won the Big Island but not the main island. The main island is called Oahu & it has the capital Honolulu as well as Pearl Harbor. Ron Paul did amazing on every island except for the "city island" of Oahu.

Romney always wins big in areas with significant Mormon populations (like Hawaii). It is a shame because if the race was between Ron Paul and Santorum we would be dominating the LDS vote (based on the Mormons that I know).

Many Mormons (excluding those who are part of the rEVOLution) are voting for Romney for the same shallow reasons many blacks voted for Obama in 2008. He is one of "them." Political beliefs are being put to the side and Romney's past hypocrisies are being ignored/justified. Of course we know who truly represents conservative values and freedom, but even intelligent and sensible people are prone to abandoning logic for a tempting cause, in this case getting a Mormon into the White House.