Hawaii Act 37 puts write-in candidates inside cumulative voting
Hawaii Act 37 puts write-in candidates inside cumulative voting
2026-09-10 · Hawaii · Legislation
Hawaii has closed a gap that let a board decide, by procedure rather than by vote, who could win a cumulative-voting election. Act 37 (2026) amends both association statutes so that the word “candidate” in the cumulative-voting sections means “a nominee or write-in candidate.” It was signed by Governor Josh Green on May 26, 2026 and took effect that day.12
What changed, in the text
The Act is short and it lands in two places at once: HRS § 514B-124.5 for condominiums and HRS § 421J-3.2 for planned community associations. Three edits matter.
1. The trigger clause moved from the documents to the bylaws. Section 421J-3.2(a) used to open “If the association documents provide for cumulative voting by members.” It now reads “If an election is to be held by cumulative voting pursuant to the bylaws.” The condominium section took the parallel edit.1
2. “Candidate” is now defined — and the definition is the whole point. Both sections gain identical language: “As used in this section, ‘candidate’ means a nominee or write-in candidate.” Every operative reference to “nominee” in § 514B-124.5(b)–(c) became “candidate.”
3. The arithmetic is stated differently. Section 421J-3.2(a) previously told a member to cast “the product” for one candidate or distribute “the product” among several. It now says a member may “give all of the votes to one candidate or distribute the individual votes among any or all of the candidates.” Section 514B-124.5(b) matches: an owner may “cumulate the individual votes of the unit owner.”
Act 37 also imports into ch. 421J a tie-and-term rule the condominium chapter already had: “The candidates receiving the highest number of votes under this section, up to the total number of positions to be filled, shall be deemed elected, and shall be given the longest term.”
What did not change
Cumulative voting is still opt-in. Section 421J-3.2(b) survives untouched: “Unless otherwise provided in the association documents, cumulative voting shall not be permitted.” An association whose bylaws are silent runs a straight one-vote-per-seat election, and Act 37 does nothing to it.
Why the Legislature wrote it
The House Consumer Protection & Commerce Committee said the quiet part out loud in its report. Existing law, the committee found, “provides for cumulative voting only for persons nominated… This does not account for write-in candidates.” Expanding it, the report continues, is “consistent with the latest version of Robert’s Rules of Order Newly Revised and will help ensure that nominations cannot be closed early as a tactic to prevent persons from being elected as write-in candidates.”3
That is a description of a real manoeuvre: close nominations, and the only people who can receive cumulated votes are the ones already on the slate. After Act 37 the slate no longer bounds the arithmetic.
What a Hawaii board has to do differently
Re-read the election rules for the word “nominee.” House rules, election procedures and tabulation instructions written against the old sections use that word deliberately. Where they use it to exclude write-ins from cumulation, they are now inconsistent with the statute.
Ballots have to physically accommodate a write-in. A cumulative ballot that only prints boxes next to the nominated slate cannot record a lawful vote under the amended sections.
Tabulate individual votes, not a lumped product. The change from “the product” to “the individual votes” is not decorative. An owner with, say, five votes to distribute across a five-seat election may split them across five names — including a name that was never nominated — and each of those units has to be counted where it was cast.
Planned communities now have the seniority rule too. A ch. 421J association with staggered terms that has been assigning term lengths by custom, lot order, or board choice now has a statutory answer: highest vote total gets the longest term.
Who asked for it
The bill drew support from an unusually broad mix for an association measure: the Palehua Townhouse Association, the board of the AOAO of Honolulu Tower, the Hawai‘i State Association of Parliamentarians, the Hawaii Council of Community Associations, and the management firm Associa.3
A drafting detail worth knowing
The CPC committee amended the bill to carry an effective date of “July 1, 3000” — Hawaii’s standard “defective date” device, used to keep a measure alive while forcing further negotiation rather than to actually postpone it a thousand years. Conference restored “upon its approval,” which is why the Act is in force now.1
What to watch
Act 37 changes who may receive cumulated votes. It does not touch quorum, proxies, the electronic-meeting rules from Act 42 (2024), or director eligibility. The 2027 session is where any follow-on to nomination procedure itself would appear; nothing is pre-filed on it as of this writing.
Related Hawaii HOA Topics
- HB 1678, C.D. 1 (enrolled) — Act 37, Session Laws of Hawaii 2026, Hawaii State Legislature ↩
- Governor's Message 1137 — signing of Act 37, May 26, 2026 ↩
- House Standing Committee Report 898-26 (Consumer Protection & Commerce), March 5, 2026 ↩
- Legislative Reference Bureau, Bills Enacted — Regular Session of 2026 (Act numbers and effective dates) ↩
- HRS § 514B-124.5, pre-amendment text (L 2014, c 189, § 1) ↩
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