Background
Three petitioners — Ralph S. Cushnie, Tara Malia Gregory, and Douglas W. Pasnik — filed an original petition for writ of mandamus in the Hawaii Supreme Court on June 9, 2026. The petition named Scott T. Nago, the Chief Election Officer of the State of Hawaiʻi, and the Hawaiʻi Elections Commission as respondents. Notably, petitioner Cushnie is himself a Commissioner on the Hawaiʻi Elections Commission.
The petitioners sought what they characterized as “prospective enforcement” — an order compelling the respondents to act in a particular manner with respect to elections that had not yet taken place. The petition did not concern a completed election or an action already taken by the Chief Election Officer, but rather sought to pre-emptively direct how he would conduct himself in certifying future election results.
The Court’s Holding
The Hawaii Supreme Court, in a per curiam order signed by Chief Justice Devens and Justices McKenna, Eddins, and Ginoza, along with Circuit Judge Cahill sitting by assignment, unanimously denied the petition. The court declined to grant prospective mandamus relief because it had no basis to know how the Chief Election Officer would act when the time came to certify results for an upcoming election. Citing Tax Foundation of Hawaiʻi v. State, 144 Hawaiʻi 175, 190, 439 P.3d 127, 142 (2019), the court found the requested relief premature.
The court also noted that under Hawaiʻi Revised Statutes § 11-7.5(7), it is the Hawaiʻi Elections Commission’s statutory duty to advise the Chief Election Officer on matters relating to elections — a structural consideration that further undercut the need for extraordinary judicial intervention. Applying the standard from Womble Bond Dickinson (US) LLP v. Kim, 153 Hawaiʻi 307, 319, 537 P.3d 1154, 1166 (2023), the court concluded that an extraordinary writ was unwarranted.
Key Takeaways
- Mandamus will not issue to compel prospective action where the court cannot know whether the officer will act unlawfully — the writ requires a clear, present duty that has already been refused or is imminently threatened.
- Hawaii’s existing administrative structure assigns the Elections Commission the advisory role over the Chief Election Officer, making pre-emptive judicial compulsion particularly inappropriate before any disputed action has occurred.
- The unusual posture of a sitting Elections Commissioner petitioning to compel the officer his own commission is charged with advising drew implicit attention from the court’s footnote, though it did not independently drive the outcome.
Why It Matters
This decision reinforces the high threshold Hawaii courts apply before issuing extraordinary writs in the election context. Litigants cannot use mandamus as a prophylactic tool to lock in a particular course of conduct before an election officer has taken — or refused to take — any action. The ruling preserves the Chief Election Officer’s discretion to perform his statutory duties without pre-emptive judicial constraint, while leaving open the possibility of relief if and when an actual violation materializes.
For election-law practitioners, the case is a reminder that ripeness and the speculative nature of future official conduct are independent bars to mandamus relief, distinct from the merits of any underlying claim about how elections must be administered.