State will delay enforcing new voter registry

Officials in most communities say they will not be ready to use the more accurate, computer-generated lists in November.

Wednesday, September 22, 2004

BY DANIEL BARBARISI
Providence Journal Staff Writer

PROVIDENCE It was hoped that new, more accurate voting lists could be used in every city and town in the November general election, but the secretary of state and the Board of Elections agreed yesterday that only eight communities will have to use them.

Warwick, Woonsocket and Pawtucket are the only additional cities that will have their new voter registration lists reviewed and ready, joining Cranston, Smithfield, Exeter, Westerly and Scituate, which debuted their lists in last week's primary.

Secretary of State Matt Brown, who was represented at the meeting of the Board of Elections by staffers and a lawyer, said in a phone interview later that, while a number of communities are close to being ready, his office will not force any to go forward with the new Central Voter Registration System if they are not comfortable using it.

"Only when a town has certified that their voter lists are cleaned up and accurate and that they are prepared to use the new system will they be transferred to the CVRS. No city or town will be converted if they are not ready," Brown said.

The news was a relief to the heads of several municipal canvassing boards.

"I'm very pleased. I'd like to go online, but I just don't have the personnel," said Gertrude B. Chartier, the canvassing clerk in Central Falls.

"Am I ready for it? No, I'm not. I am not ready for a problem on election night." said Lisabeth Marwell, director of the Board of Canvassers in North Providence. "It's just too much pressure in a presidential election year."

The local canvassers and representatives from the secretary of state's office were on hand at an elections board hearing to review how the new voting lists affected primaries in the four test communities. Smithfield had no primary.

In development for months, the centralized voting registry was created using digital mapping technology, census data, postal data and geocoding to determine the right precincts, wards, districts, and even cities and towns for all registered voters.

The computer-generated process flagged thousands of possible errors in the locations where people vote, forcing canvassers in each community to check each one for accuracy. Consultants have worked with local canvassers for the past month with the goal of getting as many communities as possible ready to go.

Most of the state's largest cities are among the group that will use the new lists in September, but Brown said that Providence is not close to being ready, partially because of complicating issues stemming from its recent legislative redistricting.

In another matter, the secretary and the Board of Elections decided to recast the new provisional ballots that caused problems in the Cranston primary. The ballots, available for the first time, were to be given to voters who insisted on voting even though poll workers determined they were ineligible.

A requirement that provisional ballots be available to avoid disenfranchising legitimate voters is part of the Help America Vote Act, a law passed after the voting fiasco in Florida in 2000.

As it turned out, of the rougly 540 provisional ballots cast in Cranston, only 30 were eventually counted.

The provisional ballots were supposed to be put aside in red bags for review later, but in an undetermined number of cases, Cranston voters placed them in voting machines to be counted.

The ballots will be revamped, with different colors and computer codings that will prompt the voting machines to reject them. The $90,000 change should make the ballots "error-proof," according to Board of Elections acting Executive Director George Bowen.

A representative yesterday repeated the secretary of state's offer for federal money to hire state inspectors for polling places in November.

"I think the problem in the primary was that there were not enough poll workers, and the poll workers who were there were not trained well enough," Brown explained later.

Board of Elections Chairman Roger N. Begin expressed concern that the inspectors were just a one-time fix, but other board members seemed open to the offer.

Brown said he has enough federal aid to place one state inspector at every polling place in the state. The Elections Board and the secretary of state will meet again to discuss whether they want to use the inspectors, and if so how much to pay them.

At yesterday's hearing, the canvassers and the clerks in the test communities said they were very happy with the new centralized registry.

Using the state's lists will save money in the short and long term for local canvassing boards that have in the past relied on outside contractors to keep their voting lists up to date.

The test communities canceled contracts with their vendors this year, and with the new system in place, municipal employees should be able to their lists without help in the future.

Kenneth McGunagle, chairman of the canvassers in Cranston, said the city saved roughly $9,000. With all the worry surrounding the new system before the primary, he said he was pleasantly surprised with how it turned out.

"It was new and we had to get used to it. It was the least of our problems," he said.

Cathy Brayman, the deputy town clerk in Westerly, said the new system saved the town $1,600, and was "very user-friendly."

"I feel that the primary went fine with no problems," she said.