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the reasons were, and they made it quite simple . And it is <br /> regretable that it was all turned down because most of them were <br /> quite sensible and there were just a couple that were <br /> controversial and that generated the opposition. <br /> One of the. . . some of the council members suggested that <br /> what they should have. . . should do is take the controversial <br /> ones and list them separately. And then kind of have a patch- <br /> all for all the ones that were basically housekeeping or, you <br /> know, fairly uncontroversial ones . So I suppose that would be <br /> an alternative too , to package it that way. But basically I <br /> think the best approach is to , you know, offer the voters as <br /> much information and fully. . . give them as many choices as <br /> possible . <br /> Most . . . the ' 78 Con-Con ballot was challenged after the vote <br /> was taken. There was litigation that went to the Hawaii Supreme <br /> Court . And the Hawaii Supreme Court basically upheld it saying, <br /> well , we have to again rely upon the good sense of the voters . <br /> This isn' t particularly something the courts can work out very <br /> well . If a mistake was made, as an easy political remedy, you <br /> can put this thing back in the ballot and have another election. <br /> And that ' s tended to be the way courts have handled this . There <br /> are very few cases in which courts have overturned those . <br /> One case where they did--and maybe it ' s worth mentioning-- <br /> in Tennessee they were . . .voted whether or not the county should <br /> allow liquor by the drink. It kind of boggled the area. And <br /> the people putting it on the ballot obviously were not in favor <br /> of this and so they hada symbol by the place where you can <br /> vote . And if you wanted to allow liquor by the drink, the <br /> symbol was a serpent . And if you wanted to keep the county <br /> dry, the symbol was a Bible . That was something. And so the <br /> court in that case said it was unfair, misleading to the voters . <br /> But you know, if you can avoid something that extreme, you <br /> probably can get away with anything. But the best advice is <br /> try to be as fair as possible. <br /> BETHEA: But have you seen other language other than this <br /> for-and-against thing? I found that that was a great big source <br /> of confusion in these initiatives . People never know. I mean, <br /> for-and-against , and you get double negatives in there and all <br /> this other type of stuff, whereas something that could he <br /> talked about , yes or no, and I just don' t have the experience <br /> about whether or not there ' s other language that you could put <br /> on the ballot that would be a whole lot clearer than. . . <br /> VAN DYKE: People, I mean, in. . .generally in speaking <br /> nationally, people instinctively have tended to vote no when <br /> they don' t understand things . So you do. . . I m just looking <br /> for the ones I have , yeah, the ' 82 . Honolulu one was yes and <br /> no. If that makes any difference . <br /> 120 <br />