Frustration on Molokai

Molokai /Lanai OHA Trustee Colette Machado won the 2008 statewide election against challenger Waipa Purdy.

Here is a deeper look at the whole story. On January 31, 2007 an extraordinary event consisting of thirteen hundred Molokai citizens participated in an election for the seats on the Molokai Enterprise Community, or EC. To get a sense of how extraordinary, some twelve hundred Molokai citizens participated in this year’s state election.

Colette Machado lost her seat in this 2007 EC election by a huge margin garnering only 29% of the votes. A short time later, she was “appointed” back onto the EC board where she sits as an officer today.

In the November 4, 2008 general election, Colette lost to Waipa Purdy in Maui County, and, as happened in January of 2007, got trounced on the island of Molokai, receiving only 26% of the votes in her own precinct.

The citizen voice of Molokai was as loud as you can get in trying to pick their leader, but the process drowned out their voices. Something is wrong with this picture, and the process needs fixing. Molokai has only two resident publicly elected officials, OHA trustee and our county councilperson, but neither are elected solely by Molokai voters.

This is a true life story of frustration in trying to believe and participate in the system from the taxation without representation island of Molokai.