Stand with Maui: Push for Fair Elections

Aloha Supporters of our Maui Nui,

This GoFundMe page was started for two reasons. First, to pay off the legal bill incurred by myself and the 30 citizen challengers. Second, with any proceeds above the legal bills, to continue to work to effectuate election reform and change in Maui County and the State of Hawaii.

By now, most of you have heard that our election contest was denied by the State Supreme Court. I received the following message from Lance Collins, explaining what seems to be the egregious circular reasoning by the court:

They decided that we did not present sufficient proof (seemingly indicating that we needed to provide the images of the envelopes and the comparison signatures for the 900 people despite the fact that they ruled those items are confidential and not accessible to election contestants two years ago).

In addition, what we believe should be publicly available information was denied based on estimated costs of almost $11,000 that County Clerk Moana Lutey proposed to charge me. See the attached documents, received 20 or so days after we filed the request.

I asked Lance about filing an appeal and was told we could file for reconsideration, but they have never granted it in the past. We did file for reconsideration and were summarily dismissed.

So it seems, with somewhat nefarious and dubious denial of our right to due process, we have come to an end in our quest to flip the Council and save Maui County from the big developer influence the current County majority has demonstrated they are fully serving unapologetically. I am so sorry it ended this way, not for myself, but for the future of our precious island community. We will need to continue the fight, even in the face of the obscene efforts to push through the Wailea 670 project with much less affordable housing than originally promised, as well as a substandard water system, no developer responsibility for widening the highway, and no $5,000,000 contribution to our South Maui parks.

Mahalo nui to all who joined in the fight to turn the Council back to one that addresses the concerns of our residents. It was a valiant effort, and I am inspired by the dedication of those who supported our cause. Please don’t lose hope as I believe there is much we can do as citizens to resist the blatant disregard for our communities that the Council majority has shown.

You are all champions of change in my book!

Below is the 2024 Election Results Timeline for South Maui:

First read - November 5th at 11:42 PM

COOK, Tom 20,511 42.3%

KING, Kelly Takaya 19,755 40.8%

Kelly lost by 756 votes

Third read - November 6th at 6:00 AM

COOK, Tom 26,315 41.6%

KING, Kelly Takaya 26,198 41.4%

Kelly lost by 117 votes

***Between third and final read - we reached out to voters to cure their deficient ballots, multiple news articles also covered the ballot curing outreach. There were approximately 1,000 ballots deemed deficient by the county clerk.***

Final read - November 13th at 5:50 PM

COOK, Tom 26,423 41.6%

KING, Kelly Takaya 26,326 41.4%

Kelly lost by 97 votes

[Tom gained 108 votes - Kelly gained 128 votes]

Lawsuit timeline

11/25/24 - Kelly King and 30 registered voters filed a complaint for election contest against County Clerk Moana Lutey and South Maui County Council Candidate Tom Cook.

12/6/24 - Declaration of Moana M. Lutey was filed. Filed a motion to dismiss.

12/24/24 - Supreme Court denied our contest without a hearing. Paraphrasing a quote from Lance Collins - They determined that we did not provide enough evidence, apparently suggesting that we needed to submit images of the envelopes and signature comparisons for the 900 individuals, even though they deemed those items confidential and inaccessible to election contestants two years ago.

1/3/25 - We filed a motion to reconsider with the Supreme Court

1/7/25 - Supreme Court summarily denied the motion for reconsideration

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