The Hawaiʻi Supreme Court ruled Friday that the Office of Elections must hold another election to determine the winner of a Republican primary for a state House seat.

The contest, between incumbent Kanani Souza and challenger Sheila Medeiros, will be held on Nov. 3, the same day as the general election.

Only voters in District 43 (Kapolei and Makakilo) will be allowed to vote in the contest. The race will be part of their ballot only, but it is open to all voters in the district, not just Republicans.

Because there was no Democratic primary for District 43, the winner of the GOP primary wins outright.

On Aug. 8, the election ended with Souza holding a lead of a single vote. The final tally was later narrowed to reveal a tie.

A tiebreaker was then held by the state to determine the winner, where Mederios emerged as the victor. But Souza challenged that decision and a hearing was held Wednesday.

The court did not agree with the argument of the Hawaiʻi attorney general that the burden of proof in the matter fell to Souza. Instead, it ruled, the burden fell to the state.

Justices found fault with the elections office for not taking into consideration two invalid ballots mistakenly issued to voters in another district. The two ballots, the court indicated, were enough to determine the race.

The court also determined that the state did not follow proper rule-making with the method it chose to conduct the tiebreaker — by placing the names of each candidate in plastic Easter eggs and then having one drawn from a lauhala basket. Therefore, the tiebreaker was invalid.

Third, because no candidate was validly nominated, “the primary is not pau,” as Associate Justice Todd Eddins put it in his concurring opinion, using the Hawaiian word for finished or completed. The remedy is to left the voters finish it.

Todd wrote these words:

“The right to vote means little if the result cannot be trusted. Here it could not. So the voters will settle it.”

In a statement after the ruling, Medeiros said she would abide by the court order and compete in the election. However, she said she was concerned about the Aug. 8 contest, a GOP primary, now being replaced with a general-election ballot “open to every voter in the district.”

“That change disenfranchises Republican primary voters,” she said in a statement, adding that it raises serious concerns about “process, equity and controlling law.”

Souza said, “This is a win for democracy. This is a win for House District 43 and the people of Hawaiʻi.”