Hawaii voters are being asked to decide on a significant constitutional amendment. The proposed State Constitutional Amendment seeks to remove what is considered outdated language regarding marriage.
HONOLLU (KHON2) — Hawaii voters are being asked to decide on a significant constitutional amendment. The proposed State Constitutional Amendment seeks to remove what is considered outdated language regarding marriage.
Shall the state constitution be amended to repeal the legislature’s authority to reserve
marriage to opposite-sex couples?
Hawaii State Constitutional Amendment QUESTION #1:
Specific language, added to the State Constitution in 1998, gave the legislature the authority to define marriage as being between a man and a woman.
This was at a time when Hawaii was the center of the national debate, after the landmark case, Baehr v Lewin, opened the door to the possibility of legalizing same-sex unions.
In response, Hawaii voters at the time approved a constitutional amendment to grant the Legislature the power to limit marriage to opposite sex couples. Dan Foley was the attorney in Baehr v Lewin.
“Essentially, the Legislature can ban same sex marriage, which it once did in 1997. The Legislature put the constitutional amendment on the ballot that was approved in 1998 that resulted in the ban of same sex marriage,” explained Foley.
Since then, times have changed.
Today, all 50 states recognize same sex marriage. Voters are now being asked to remove the language which is viewed as outdated and discriminatory and to protect against any US Supreme Court reversal of their decision.
“If they did, then under our current state constitution, our Legislature could ban same sex marriage again. So this proposed constitutional amendment on the ballot in November, is to take that power away from the Legislature,” said Foley.
There was a handful of opposition against the bill in the Legislature. Testimony included those who argued the Marriage Equity Act is already in place.
Cari Sasaki submitted written testimony, calling the proposed change as “political bullying by the majority party.”
A ‘Yes’ vote on the amendment would remove the language from the constitution.
A ‘No’ vote would make no change.
There’s an important distinction about your vote when it comes to deciding changes to the state constitution. For these constitutional amendments, even the blank votes count, too.
Voters are being asked to vote ‘yes’ or ‘no’ on two state Constitutional Amendments.
By state law, in order for a state constitutional amend proposal to pass, it must get 50% plus one of all the ballots cast in the general election. If a voter leaves the question blank, it’s counted as a no vote.
If a voter votes both ‘yes’ and ‘no’ on their ballot, the question is invalid and will not be counted.
Voting is different for county charter amendments.
Only ‘yes’ and ‘no’ votes are counted and will be approved if there are more yes votes over no votes.