State lawmakers and voting­-rights advocates gathered at the state Capitol on Thursday to oppose a recent recommendation from the Hawaii Elections Commission to eliminate universal mail-in voting and return to single-day, in-person elections.

Speakers called the commission’s proposal a step backward that would restrict voter access and mirror mainland partisan debates rather than local needs.

In October the Hawaii Elections Commission voted 5-3 to ask the Legislature to rescind the state’s universal mail-in voting system and return to single-day, in-person elections with limited absentee ballots — a dramatic reversal of the 2019 law that established all-mail voting statewide.

The panel spent hours in meetings debating the findings of two “permitted interactive groups” that a majority of

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