Yesterday's guest editorial by Stan Fitchman and Francisco Figueiredo entitled "Hawaii GOP Convention - Majority and Minority Voices Heard" misstates the controversy surrounding the vote count at the Hawaii Republican Convention. I was one of the observers from the Ron Paul campaign and I watched the vote count. I am under no illusions that Ron Paul lost the count. It was clear that the majority of ballots were the preprinted variety that supported John McCain.
The votes were counted and verified by groups of three or four people. The votes were placed in envelopes in packets of 50 - 100 votes with the totals on the outside. Up to this point no one had any objections to the count. What we objected to was that weren't allowed to see the envelopes being totaled and entered into the computer. Security was told to throw us out if we tried to watch this part of the vote count. The explanation that I was given was that observers were to watch the "counting" not the "tallying."
Now that is clearly and obviously wrong. Anyone with any sense can see that this brings the election process into question. Tallying the votes from several envelopes is a part of the counting process. Why shouldn't it be visible to observers from both campaigns. Would anyone allow the Democrats to tally election votes with no Republican observers? Even in the elections where Hawaii Republicans are sure lose more seats to the Democrats, no one would let the Democrats have unlimited unobserved access to one part of the counting process.
Sadly, Hawaii's republican Party has been trying to make it seem like Ron Paul supporters are the only ones who were disenfranchised. Gun Rights supporters wanted a debate on the floor. Anti Rail groups were railroaded (sorry, couldn't resist the pun) by Lingle and the Republican insiders who support her big government plan. The entire platform committee worked for weeks to get a decent platform up for a vote and they were silenced.
It it going to cost the Hawaii GOP in November. The message was clear: The Hawaii GOP is not interested in Ron Paul's message of small government and lower taxes. His supporters can take their money bombs, their enthusiasms, their youth and look somewhere else to be heard. Message received loud and clear.
Jerry Murphy can be reached at mailto:gerardstephenmurphy@yahoo.com
