Low turnout, mild confusion

Providence Journal  Tuesday, September 14, 2004

After a slow morning, the pace at primary polls picked up in the city of Cranston by midday, where a heated mayoral primary was expected to turn out voters.

Police officers were present at every polling place and at the Board of Canvassers office in City Hall, following a Police Department warning last week that public union members from other communities may be at the polls handing out fliers and other paraphernalia.

City union members are supporting Garry Reilly, who is opposing Mayor Stephen P. Laffey in today's Republican mayoral primary.

While none of the feared conflicts had emerged by early afternoon, the number of voters was on the rise. While the Board of Canvassers would not speculate on a final turnout, the Laffey campaign was projecting that 10,000 would cast their votes by the times polls closed tonight a high number.

Some primary voters in Cranston were also being faced with confusion over the location of their polling place, in the wake of changes made in five test communities including Cranston around the state.

In at least one instance, a voter made the rounds of four polling places before being told he had found the right one in which to cast his vote. More reports of similar confusion were also coming in, despite poll workers being equipped with master lists to direct voters to their proper poll.

Digital Extra

Providence Board of Canvassers site: Find your polling place

Secretary of State's site: Find your polling place and sample ballots for all communities with a primary, except Providence

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In another quirk, Board of Canvassers' Chairman Kenneth McGunagle said that some Democratic voters had asked to vote in the GOP primary and been given provisional ballots to do so. But instead of those ballots being held aside, they were incorrectly put directly into voting machines and processed.

McGunagle said about 50 such votes had been put through before the the board alerted poll workers not to do so.

McGunagle also said the police presence "helped us with some very zealous poll workers," who he said complained about voting procedures at a handful of the city's 50 polls.

"Both (parties) are emotionally charged, it is the big day," he said.

In Providence, where city officials had also feared confusion over polling places, a reporter's check of five polls this morning revealed a very light turnout and no confusion.

The Providence Board of Canvassers had mailed out up to 100,000 cards telling voters which polling place to use today. The cards were intended to clarify where to vote following the settlement of a court battle over the layout of state Senate districts in the south end of the city. The settlement affected 12 of the state's 38 senate districts, including all 7 in Providence.

Officials discovered Saturday after the cards were delivered that 23,000 or more of them listed the wrong polling place because of a computer problem whose origin remained unclear yesterday.

Laurence K. Flynn, chairman of the Providence Board of Canvassers, said he and his staff worked all weekend to produce a corrective mailing, which was mailed Sunday night and delivered yesterday.

As promised, Providence elections officials were equipped this morning with voter lists allowing them to tell any eligible voter who turns up where he or she should vote.

Flynn said this afternoon that a few snags were reported this morning at the polls, but little related to questions over polling locations. Turnout remained low, he said, though he anticipated it would pick up in certain pockets of the city later today.

Voters who have questions about their polling places may call the Board of Canvassers' office, Flynn said, at 421-7740, ext. 203 or 204.

The Internet also offers help for those having trouble. The secretary of state's Web page for locating polling places was operating for everywhere but Providence, omitting the city because of the problems there, a spokesman said.

The Providence Board of Canvassers' Web site, however, was accurate before the erroneous mailing and remains that way, Flynn said yesterday.

The other voting complication, affecting perhaps 1,000 voters in Cranston, Smithfield, Scituate, Exeter, and Westerly, stemmed from an effort by Brown to improve the state's voter registration system.

Using computer mapping technology, Brown's office discovered more than 1,500 voters listed in the wrong wards, legislative districts and even the wrong towns. The Board of Elections voted Sept. 2 to use the new lists in the five towns.

Since then, the number of voters thought to be affected has been changing. Yesterday, Peter Kerwin, Brown's spokesman, said that in the community most affected Cranston 631 persons will shift from one polling place to another within the city, and 22 will be moved out of Cranston entirely, all of them voting in Providence instead.

In other primary action around the state today:

A Superior Court judge issued a temporary restraining order preventing officials from certifying the results of an at-large school committee race in Lincoln, pending a hearing.

Acting on behalf of two residents, the American Civil Liberties Union challenged the town's decision to hold a "preliminary election" to winnow from five to four the list of candidates for the two non-partisan, at-large seats.

The ACLU says all five candidates should appear on the November ballot. It argues that the run-off election is not authorized by the town's charter and is contrary to state law.

Lincoln Democratic Town Committee Chairman John J. Cullen, one of the plaintiffs, argues in part that eliminating one of the five candidates at the September primary disenfranchises voters because historically, less than 30 percent of the town's eligible voters vote in primaries, a much smaller number than vote in November elections.

A Superior Court judge in Providence today said the race results could be released but not certified before the hearing, sometime next week.