Give the Big Island County Council credit for guts for volunteering to become the first elected body in Hawai'i to test publicly financed election campaigns.

The council voted 7-1 to preliminarily approve "comprehensive public funding" in the 2010 election for council candidates who get at least 200 voters to sign their petitions and contribute $5 to their campaigns. The final vote is Jan. 23.

The plan would ultimately have to be approved by the Legislature, which has resisted reforming campaign financing laws that heavily favor the re-election of incumbents.

A bill to allow publicly funded county races, House Bill 661, passed the House last year despite the reservations of some members, but got no hearing in the Senate.

If one of the counties embraces the idea, it will be politically difficult for the Legislature to say no when the matter is revisited this year.

The Big Island council deserves credit because comprehensive public financing would diminish the advantage held by incumbents, who easily raise money from special-interest groups they've supported while challengers attract relatively little financial support.

Weakly contested races have been a major factor in the low voter turnout that has made democracy in some Hawai'i elections little more than a formality.

In 2006 O'ahu council elections, half of incumbents were re-elected unopposed and the others faced token opposition. A third of Maui council incumbents ran unopposed, as did two of the nine on the Big Island.

In the Legislature in 2006, five of 13 state senators up for re-election and seven House incumbents were unopposed, with most other incumbents facing grossly underfunded opponents.

According to the state Campaign Spending Commission, those who won Senate seats in 2006 — mostly incumbents — raised an average of more than $91,000, while losers raised only $32,000. In House races, winning candidates had an average of over $46,000 to spend while losers had only $15,000.

Most alarming is that the pattern of noncompetitive elections is extending to Hawai'i's top executive offices.

Gov. Linda Lingle drew no name Democratic opposition in 2006 after raising more than $6 million, and Honolulu Mayor Mufi Hannemann has scared off opponents so far this year by posting more than $1 million to his campaign account early.

If no credible opponent steps up, Hannemann will become the first Honolulu mayor in modern times to be re-elected without serious opposition despite sharply divided opinion over his positions on rail transit, refuse management and sewage treatment.

The plan being proposed on the Big Island would level the playing field for challengers by providing all qualified candidates who choose public financing with 90 percent of the average amount spent by winning candidates in the previous two elections.

It would be paid from the Hawai'i Election Campaign Fund, which gets money from voluntary checkoffs on state income tax forms.

Voter Owned Hawai'i, which has long advocated such a system, says public campaign funding has increased competition for office and voter turnout in states such as Maine and Arizona, while reducing the influence of special-interest money.

Skeptics say it would cost too much, but taxpayers foot the bill either way; election campaigns now are significantly financed by special interests seeking government business, which often get their money back by adding the cost of political donations to their bids for government work.

Some conservatives worry that public campaign financing would make big government even bigger, but administering elections has always been a basic function of government.

Those who don't like public funding owe it to voters to offer other alternatives to reform the current pay-to-play system of campaign financing that amounts to legalized bribery.

David Shapiro, a veteran Hawai'i journalist, can be reached by e-mail at dave@volcanicash.net. Read his daily blog at blogs.honoluluadvertiser.com.