reason that the use of racial classifications is corruptive of the whole legal order democratic elections seek to preserve....Distinctions between citizens solely because of their ancestry are by their very nature odious to a free people whose institutions are founded upon the doctrine of equality". Proposed United States federal recognition of Native Hawaiians The year of hearings found most speakers with strong opposition to the U.S. government's involvement in Hawaiian sovereignty, with opponents arguing that tribal recognition of Native Hawaiians is not a legitimate path to Hawaiian nationhood and that the U.S. government should not be involved in reestablishing Hawaiian sovereignty. On September 29, 2015, the United States Department of the Interior announced a procedure to recognize a Native Hawaiian government. The Native Hawaiian Roll Commission was created to find and register Native Hawaiians. The nine-member commission has prepared a roll of registered individuals of Hawaiian heritage. The nonprofit organization Naʻi Aupuni will organize the constitutional convention and election of delegates using the roll, which began collecting names in 2011. Grassroot Institute of Hawaii CEO Kelii Akina filed suit to see the names on the roll, won, and found serious flaws. The Native Hawaiian Roll Commission has since purged the list of names of deceased persons as well as those whose mailing or email addresses could not be verified. Akina again filed suit to stop the election because funding of the project comes from a grant from the Office of Hawaiian Affairs and because of a Supreme Court decision prohibiting states from conducting race-based elections. In October 2015, a federal judge declined to stop the process. The case was appealed with a formal emergency request to stop the voting until the appeal was heard; the request was denied. On November 24, the emergency request was made again to Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy. On November 27, Kennedy stopped the election tallying and naming of delegates. The decision did not stop the voting itself, and a spokesman for the Naʻi Aupuni continued to encourage those eligible to vote before the November 30, 2015, deadline. The election was expected to cost about $150,000, and voting was carried out by Elections America, a firm based in Washington D.C. The constitutional convention has an estimated cost of $2.6 million. See also Alaskan Independence Party History of Hawaii Hawaiian home land KKCR Legal status of Hawaii Opposition to the overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom Puerto